The Name Game
by Hearts of Eternity
Summary: Movieverse. What if the humans started wondering about the names their Cybertronian friends chose for themselves? Why is Starscream, Starscream? Or Bumblebee called Bumblebee? Well, they put their tiny, organic brains together to try and figure it out...
1. You're a Superstar

My excuse for this; creative outlet. This is just a cracky kind of thing I came up with; it's not meant to be taken seriously. I'm not even taking it too seriously… Just laugh and enjoy the fic- oh yeah, and a review goes a long way! No flames please, but reviews are nice!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, of course. Never have, never will. That's just how cruel life can be. Also, I don't own Love Inc.'s song _You're a Superstar, _or Counting Crow's _Accidentally in Love. _

**The Name Game**

"_Reach for the sky,  
__And hold your head up high  
__For tonight, and every night  
__You're a Superstar…" _

"Mikaela, for God's sake, please let me change the radio station," Sam groaned, already reaching for the dilapidated radio sitting to his right on the workbench. It was an antiquated looking thing, dusty and a little dinged, with a chronic case of static spewing from its speakers.

Without even bothering to look up from the engine she was tinkering on, Mikaela nodded absently, too immersed in her work on the engine before her to care if the music sucked or not. "Go ahead, just find something good," she replied.

With a sigh of relief, Love Inc. was changed to the nearest good rock station that had the least amount of static choking the tunes. As Sam settled back on to his perch on the metal topped workbench, he realized that he could still hear the tune of the song playing from somewhere else other than the radio. His gaze dropped to the canvas folding chair to his left, Miles' head bobbing absently along with the tune he was humming offhandedly. Somehow sensing that he had become the object of his best friend's incredulous stare, Miles tipped his head back to stare at Sam upside down, mouthing the words _"you're a superstar," _to him around a grin that stretched his face widely.

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," Sam said, reaching down to give Miles a light punch in the shoulder.

"_Superstar… Superstar… Superstar… Superstar…" _Miles sang, taking obvious delight in bothering Sam with his less-than-stellar karaoke talents. Simon Cowell would have died of a massive brain aneurism if he had been in the garage with them.

Sam looked to his long-time girlfriend pleadingly. "Are you almost done?" he whined. "He's started to sing."

A tired sigh floated up from somewhere around the pistons. "You're going to have to deal with it for now, Sam," she replied, her dark eyes peering over her work towards the two males lounging in the in the shop.

"Come on, 'Kaela. I can call Bee and he can come pick us up early," he continued to whine. "I don't want to listen to this American Idol wannabe."

"You heard Chase, I have to have this thing cleaned and ready to be installed for tomorrow before I even _try _to step foot outside this garage, otherwise she'll go Decepticon on my ass."

Sam gave a bare laugh, nodding in understanding. "Yeah, I wouldn't want you to be on the wrong side of her plasma cannon or anything." He glanced around the joint owned shop, _Hot Autobodies, _maintained by both Mikaela and her aunt Chase. It was a relatively nice place, with its roomy floor and vaulted ceiling; you would scarcely know from looking around the place that it was frequented by giant alien robots who could transform into cars, using the place in the same manner that humans use salons.

Miles, to his credit, hardly jumped at the casual mentioning of _Decepticon_, a huge improvement from his usual cowering in fear.

For a while, the two boys watched mindlessly as Mikaela went about her job of inspecting the engine, prepping it for its installation the next day. Sam had to turn his head away every once in a while as his girlfriend would bend low over the piece of machinery, conjuring an image that was too much like that first day he'd seen her bent over Bee's engine. Any more and he would have to send Miles out of the shop for a little while.

Finally, after humming his last _Superstar, _Miles looked back at his friend. "Have you ever thought about it?" he asked.

Too entranced by the sensuous vision of Mikaela's fine body moving, Sam did not catch a word asked to him. "Huh?"

"Their _names_, dude, have you ever thought about them?" Miles pressed, offering Sam an amused look.

Again, Sam drew to a blank. "Whose names?"

As if to try and clarify what he was talking about, Miles waved a dismissive hand above his head. "_Their_ names, dude- like "Optimus Prime," "Bumblebee," "Ironhide." You ever think about them?"

Accustomed to Miles pure randomness of subjects, Sam shrugged in reply. "Nah, not really, not anymore. I've known them for what, seven years-?"

"Eight and half," Mikaela corrected absently.

"Yeah, eight and half years- nothing about them makes me wonder anymore," Sam said. "It's gotten so bad that _their_ names are starting to sound normal to me and _human_ names just sound downright weird."

Miles laughed. "That's what you get for living with them, dude."

"I like their names," Mikaela piped in. She straightened up from her work, scrubbing her greased hands down her overalls. "They give you a good sense of who they are and who you're dealing with, like _Ratchet, Jazz, Prowl, Perceptor_- it tells a lot about them. I mean, their _real_ names don't exactly translate well into English, but the Earth names they choose for themselves are really unique and fit them really well."

"Okay, so they choose "names" from the English language that are supposed to describe them, but how are any of them supposed to come up with a name when they only _just_ arrive? I've seen one or two arrive before, y'know. First, everyone's using techno-talk, and then the new Auto-buddy comes up out of his hole and is suddenly like, "Hi, my name is _fill-in-the-blank_." _How_ can they do that when they've been on earth for like, what- _five seconds_?"

"It helps when you have internet connection wired directly to your brain and can download every online dictionary known to man," Sam said.

"Yeah, but what are you supposed to make of a name like… like-," Miles racked his brain for a few seconds, "_Starscream_?"

"That some bots don't comb the dictionary as closely as others?" Sam offered.

Mikaela sidled over to them, deciding that she'd done as much as she possibly could on the old engine- Chase would just have to kill her in the morning. She was tossed her water bottle by Sam and downed it easily in three gulps. Wiping the sides of her mouth with the un-greasiest part of her hand, she said, "_Or_, it could be that he was trying to make his name sound frightening."

"He failed," Sam snorted.

"I'd have to agree with you there, man," Miles nodded. "I may have a severe aversion to their whole "destroy the human race and steal the planet's energy" agenda, but seriously, "Starscream" just isn't a name that strikes fear into your heart. "Megatron" on the hand… Well, I've never met the gut, seeing as he's dead and all, but listen to it, _Megatron; _**Megatron; **MEGATRON! No matter what way you say it, it still sounds badass. Starscream just sounds… _whiney."_

"Have you ever heard him speak, Miles? In English or in Cybertronian?" Mikaela asked, leaning against the side of her workbench next to Sam's legs.

"Not particularly," he replied. "I think I'm more of a run-for-my-life kind of guy whenever he shows up rather than a sit-down-and-listen kind of guy. I don't like the thought of being a smear on the bottom of anybody's foot any day."

"Ditto," Sam chimed.

"Same here," Mikaela laughed. "But that aside, if you ever do get to hear Stascream talk without a giant cannon being pointed down your throat, it's like nails on a chalk board. Not so much in English, but in Cybertronian…" she broke off to shudder. "It makes your ears want to bleed."

"That bad?" Miles asked sympathetically.

"Worse," Sam sighed. He had had the most unfortunate luck of any of the humans that worked with the Autobots, being caught on the battlefield between the behemoth Decepticon leader and whomever he was engaging with at the time more times than he could count. "Makes your skin want to crawl off the bone, or all your internal organs want to come out your mouth."

"Whoa," Miles sighed in awe. "So, his voice is like the ultimate brown note or something, but in reverse since its coming out your mouth…"

Sam and Mikaela snorted collectively. Gently nudging his girlfriend out of the way, Sam leaned down to pat his friend on the shoulder. "No, man, if anyone were to have the ultimate brown note, it would definitely be Soundwave."

Miles laughed. "Of course! Nobody could call themselves an evil genius with sound waves without knowing the ultimate brown note!" His grin took on an impish light, eyes sparkling devilishly. "The question is, why hasn't he used it on us yet? A weapon like that would be killer to us organics!"

Sam shrugged, his own grin stretching wide across his face. "I guess he's that shitty of a 'Con," he replied while Mikaela rolled her eyes.

"What brought this on all of a sudden, anyways?" she asked, glancing at the clock. Bumblebee was going to be there to pick them up any minute now to take them to the main Autobot base. "Why ask about their names now? You've known them nearly as long as we have."

"No reason, really," Miles shrugged. "I was just thinking about their names is all, like Starscream."

"What's there to think about?" Sam laughed. "Star. Scream. Stars that scream; screaming stars; the scream of a star; he's such a bad ass Decepticon that he makes the stars want to scream when he gets into their galaxies."

"Or he's so ugly he makes them want to scream," Mikaela pointed out.

"That too," he conceded.

Miles shifted in his canvas chair. "But who ever said he meant "Starscream" to be like "Star Scream"?" he asked. "What if he didn't mean "Star Scream"?"

"Then what could he have meant?" Sam asked.

"I don't know… What if it was supposed to be like "Stars Cream" instead?" Miles offered. "Maybe he's like an intergalactic porn star or something?"

"Dear _God_, Miles, what the hell are you _on_?" Sam snorted as he tried to keep at bay the horrid images of Starscream buffed and ready for his… _close up_.

Miles held his hands up in defence. "We don't know much about Cybertron! They could have porn there- what kind of planet _wouldn't_ have porn?!"

"A robot planet that doesn't have sex like we do?" Mikaela countered.

"Ha! But they do have an equivalent! I heard all about from Ratchet when I asked why it sounded like Jazz and Prowl were dying in their room!" He looked particularly triumphant. "And if they have crazy-wild-robot-sex then they _must_ have crazy-wild-robot-porn, and if they have crazy-wild-robot-porn then Starscream really could be a porn star."

"You decuctive skills scare me, Miles," Sam sighed.

The blond was on a roll now, utelizing every neuron in his brain to further the game he's began. "He could be in movies like… _Galactic Conqueror, _or _Decepti-Come and Get it On, _or… or… _The Soundwaves of Screaming Stars." _

"Let me guess, that one's gay robot porn?"

Miles shrugged. "You never know."

"I can't believe I'm listening to this," Mikaela whined.

"It's no worse than that _Superstar _song," Sam shrugged, scooting forward along the metal counter he sat on so that he could wrap his arms tight around her waist. He buried his face in her shoulder as if trying to erase the mental pictures that were forever going to haunt him now. "I swear, now I have that '_you're a Superstar'_ crap repeating over and over again in my head, and every time I think 'superstar' I get this mental image of Starscream getting ready to-."

"Finish that sentence Samuel James Witwicky and I _will_ kill you."

He laughed nervously and backed off. "I'm never going to be able to respect him again," he sighed. "Not that I did in the first place, but now it's just even less."

"I know what you mean, dude," Miles nodded solemnly.

To break up the disturbed silence that had settled on the three adults, a bright yellow Camaro came gliding up the lonely, dark road. They saw the headlights and heard the familiar purr of the engine long before they could see the sheen of his paint, but still they recognized him easily. It was dark enough for him to be driving without his hologram in place, so as Bumblebee turned into the lot in front of _Hot Autobodies _his driver's seat was conspicuously empty. None of the three humans were surprised by the empty driver's seat; they knew Bumblebee was a better driver than most _human_ ones.

They waved to the scout as he beeped to them and easily came to a stop just outside the garage doors. With a quick sound byte from the Counting Crows-

"_Come on, Come on  
__Move a little closer!  
__Come on, Come on  
__I want to hear you whisper!" _

-the humans hastened themselves to close up the shop, eager to climb inside Bumblebee's comfortable interior and make their way to the Autobot's base. With a last flick of the lights and a double check to see that all the locks were in place, they were ready to head out.

Sliding in and getting comfortable, Sam in the driver's seat, Mikaela in the passenger's, and Miles shoved in the back, the radio clicked on for them, Bumblebee scrolling through the stations until he found something.

"_Like any other night  
__You got your name in lights!  
__You're a Superstar…!" _

A collective shudder ran throughout the three humans sitting with the Autobot. Sam choked back his urge to puke profusely on best alien friend, laying a steadying hand on the cool leather of the steering wheel as it turned slowly underneath his hands on its on accord. The horror of the images that plagued him were downright disturbing.

"Bumblebee, maybe that's not the best song to be playing right now…"


	2. Every Breath You Take

Wow! The response to the first chapterwas insane! I can hardly believe that so many people were entertained and disturbed by my strange musings! I can only hope that this chapter lives up to the strangeness that I have created with the first!

I want to thank each and every kind reviewer who took the time to write a short but sweet little review to me. Thank you so much to: **Violet Light, Jason M. Lee, AutobotStarlight, blood shifter, Dreamchylde, teh blumchenkinder, Bluebird Soaring, cmdrtekk, Jessi Tsuki, j's 91, Fire From Above, Arahsi, Lady Tecuma, Bunnylass, Cyndi, whatisee, autumn sparrow, Soului, Kittona, Thing With No Talent, Dragon260**, and **caz. **

I would like to personally thank **Lady Tecuma** for her very kind offer to look this over, and her most amazing help in shaping this up because I have been a terrible bum at it. Lady Tecuma, your help has been invaluable to me. As well, to the very kind and generous **Violet Light, **who just so happens to be the best beta in the world, I want to thank you so much for all your help and betaing! You've been the best putting up with me!

Warning- a short scene featuring the mentioning of porn on screen does take place in the chapter! And so does a blatant reference to Prowl the ninja-bot from TF: Animated! Beware of either one! Plus, beware of the absolute randomness of the chapter!

Disclaimer: Still don't own Transformers. I don't own Simple Plan's _Shut Up, _or the _Rocky Horror Picture Show_, or Aerosmith's _Dude looks like a Lady, _or The Police's _Every Breath You Take_, or the Village People's _YMCA, _or pretty much anything else mentioned in this fic

**The Name Game**

The ride to the Autobot's main base was a smooth as it ever had been, filled with the odd radio stylings of their chauffer Bumblebee. The only thing worse than listening to the long stretch of nothing but oldies blasting from the speakers was listening as Miles happily sung along in the backseat in the same tone-deaf, Idol wannabe way that he had done for the earlier torture of _You're a Superstar. _

Listening to the torture for the twenty minute drive to the base gave Sam a very new and clear understanding of why dogs stick their heads out the windows of cars; it wasn't to feel the wind on their faces, it was to get away from the sound of the radio and the humans singing along to it. Looking out the dark window on the driver's side, he wondered vaguely if Bumblebee would mind if he rolled down the window and stuck his head out for a little while. A few bugs in the teeth was a small price to pay to be able to keep his sanity by getting away from Miles' voice.

But, instead of it being Mikaela or Sam cracking first and committing manslaughter in the backseat, it was the enabler of the music that gave a shudder that vibrated the whole car, the speakers now shouting-

"_So Shut Up! Shut Up! Shut Up!  
__Don't Wanna Hear it!  
__Get Out! Get out! Get Out!  
__Get Out Of My Way!" _

Miles laughed, thankfully taking the hint. "My singing that bad, Bee?" he asked.

"There is only so much I can tune out of my audio receptors," Bumblebee replied, his voice emanating from the speakers where the music no longer blasted. "Your rendition of the _Time Warp_ is not one of them."

Slumping back in the warm leather of his seat, Miles shrugged. "And here I thought I was doing a pretty good job singing it," he replied. "I don't care how old that movie is, the _Rocky Horror Picture Show_ rocks."

"You thinking of becoming the next Dr. Frank-N-Furter?" Sam asked.

"If I could pull off the garters half as well as Tim Curry did, then yeah," Miles replied.

"I'm sure that would an interesting look for you, Miles," Mikaela laughed.

"I will never understand the humour in that film," Bumblebee sighed. Had he been human, he would have been shaking his head. Sam had introduced the film to him a number of years ago and it made as much sense to him as why lemmings commit mass suicide by jumping off cliffs.

Sam patted the dashboard consolingly. "It might just be a human thing," he said.

"Well, y'know… Starscream might make a good Dr Frank-."

"_Don't go there Miles!"_

Bumblebee jumped in with a quick byte of Aerosmith, "_-Dude looks like a lady!" _

Mikaela wrinkled her nose. "My brain's already been violated enough, tonight. How about we _not_ think about Starscream for a little while?"

"Gladly," Sam laughed. Bee was kind enough not to inquire about why Starscream was such a taboo subject at the moment for his charges.

The Camaro turned into the secluded dirt road that would take them to the old airbase that had been gifted to the Autobots as their first base on Earth. As they came into the massive field, driving straight through the hologram that kept it looking like the old, disused airbase it used to be, they came into sight of a towering Cybertronian structure; a massive metal behemoth that consumed much of the ground space with its mass and swallowed up a good portion of the air space too. Though you couldn't see it from the outside, the base also took up a couple miles of underground space too.

Bumblebee gave a jovial beep to the bot on duty stationed at the entrance, his human charges leaning out the windows to wave, as they continued on in towards the human sector of the base. Passing through the hall where most of the Commanders and heads of different Autobot regiments had their offices, they heard a few drifting notes of music floating down the cavernous corridor. It was not unusual to hear such human things as music drifting about through the halls once in a while, seeing as many of the Autobots had taken a liking to many parts of human culture, but it was strange to hear something as informal as music down the normally stark and foreboding Commanders' hall.

Coming upon Prowls' closed office door, they were doubly surprised to hear the music was coming from within-

"_Every breath you take  
__Every move you make  
__Every bond you break  
__Every step you take  
__I'll be watching you…" _

"The Police?" Mikaela wondered quizzically.

Sam shrugged. "Makes sense, being a cop bot and all."

Bumblebee revved lightly. "Odd though. He normally doesn't listen to Earth music."

"Maybe Jazz has finally started to rub off on him," Mikaela offered.

"…unlikely," the scout sighed. "I believe the saying is 'hell would freeze over first.'"

They turned down a couple more corridors, waving back to a few of the bots and humans they passed, until they came to the end of the hall that opened into the humans' section. It wasn't too special, just a large room annexed for primarily human recreation; in short, a place where they could go without having to worry about being stepped on. That didn't always stop the shorter bots from entering to hang out with their human friends, though.

There was a piece of paper taped up on the wall near the entrance at roughly human height, obviously taped up by a disgruntled human judging by the scribbled writing across it which stated, quite bluntly, "_you must be at least THIS short to enter!" _

Driving by, Sam leaned out the window and nabbed the paper, crumpling it.

Will Lennox and Robert Epps were already waiting for them, lounging on the mismatched collection of chairs and couches that had been gathered in one corner. Near them sat Blaster, looking odd as his red-painted, six-foot, alien self stretched out on a long, black leather La-Z-Boy. Even stranger still was the pair of red and yellow Lambo twins crouched low amidst the human seating arrangements, Sunstreaker glowering darkly while Sideswipe conversed easily with Will and Epps.

Piling out of Bumblebee, the three newly arrived humans waved and made their way carefully through the various human creature comforts that had collected in the large rec room, including the small basketball court and miniature gym. With the familiar melody of Cybertronian transformation filling the room, Bumblebee unfolded from his sleek Camaro alt form and walked over to the sitting area, sliding down to sit against the wall.

"Hello Will, Epps," he chirruped in greeting. "How are you?"

Will shrugged. "Not too bad, Bee," he replied. "Just got out of mediating a meeting between the Army bigwigs and Ironhide; you know how it is, they want access to this, they want to pick apart that, and old 'Hide still maintains that we're too primitive to be handling anything."

"I hope that wasn't too… troublesome."

"No more than usual," the human replied. "I've learned to duck quick when Ironhide starts charging his cannons."

Mikaela clucked her tongue, grabbing the overstuffed loveseat with Sam as Miles threw himself into a high backed chair with a dartboard strapped to the back. "He didn't actually shoot at anything this time, did he?" she asked.

"Just the ceiling, but it was completely warranted. Simmons decided to rear his head in there."

"I'm surprised he didn't shoot Simmons," Sam said. Bumblebee agreed vehemently to the sentiment. Simmons was just as pissy as he was when they first met.

Will laughed, relaxing further into the large couch he was lounging on. "Believe me, it was a close call."

Miles turned curiously to Epps. "What about you? Here for the meetings too?"

"Nah, just hangin' out with some friends," he replied, nodding to Blaster while the microbot sped through channels on the large TV installed on the wall. The communications officer had taken a liking to the MuchMusic channels ever since he arrived on Earth.

Bumblebee glanced from Blaster to the twins, who he regarded suspiciously. "Blaster I can understand being here, but I can't think of a reason as to why _you two_ would be skulking around in here…"

"We're hiding," Sideswipe shrugged.

"From who?" Sam asked, though he had a sneaking suspicion what the answer would be.

"_Prowl_," the twins replied in unison.

Will slanted Sam a humoured look. "Did you even have to ask?"

"What did you do this time?" Mikaela asked warily. She was well aware of their infamous pranking sprees, her own shop being rigged by them a few times, the most memorable being the day Sideswipe replaced the _Hot Autobodies _sign with his own that said "_Hot Autobots", _and then painted the entire front of the shop with a giant red Autobot insignia.

"Nothing," Sideswipe replied a little too quickly.

"Bull," Epps snorted. He turned to the other three humans. "They wired Prowl's office for sound so that it plays nothing but The Police non-stop. It's been going for hours."

Miles cocked his head to the side. "So that explains the music…"

"Why don't they just turn it off?" Mikaela asked incredulously.

"If you thought they could, don't you think they would've by now?" the Tech Sergeant asked.

"What's stopping them?" Bumblebee asked.

Blaster waved his arm a little. "I am," he replied. "I encrypted the music loop myself. I'm hangin' with Epps just as much as I'm hidin' from Prowl."

"Why the _hell_ would you three go and do something like that?" Sam asked incredulously.

"For something to do," Sideswipe replied as if the answer was obvious. "I don't know if you've noticed, but your planet is kind of boring."

Miles nodded sagely. "Yeah, I've noticed, man," he sighed. "Ever since you dudes showed up here, even _Halo_ has lost its glory."

"Miles, you're living _Halo_ right now," Sam deadpanned.

"How long have you three been hiding in the human sector?" Bumblebee asked.

Blaster shrugged, finally choosing to settle on a single channel. "Since the _Battlestar Galactica_ marathon started."

"That was eight hours ago!" the scout exclaimed. "How in the pit has Prowl not found you by now?"

"I've been masking our signatures," the microbot said. "And with a little bit of video feed manipulation, he thinks we're out of the base and half way to Mission City by now."

"El Pricko just isn't as sharp as he used to be," Sunstreaker said, using the humans' term for the tactician with a certain amount of relish in his voice.

"He doesn't have to be a _sharp_ prick, Sunny, he's already a _big_ prick," Sideswipe laughed. He, too, enjoyed the humans' nickname for their beloved warden. In truth, he took enjoyment out of many of English's fouler words. "The size of his prickliness makes up for the sharpness of it."

"El Grande Pricko," Miles translated, employing the worst Spanish accent ever used. Suddenly, the he perked up as if considering something very important, and a grin made its way across his face. "…Hey, has anyone ever really thought about Prowl's name?"

Instantly, Sam and Mikaela were up from their seats with twin looks of horror upon their faces. "_Don't start that again, Miles! I swear to God, I'll kick your ass if you do!" _Sam pleaded and threatened in the same breath.

"_Just no, Miles! No. Not here, not again, not Prowl! Starscream was enough!"_ Mikaela objected.

Will looked back and forth between the three adults. "And what's this about? What Miles do?"

"Ruined Starscream's name forever," Sam replied acidly.

"And that's a bad thing _how_?" Epps inquired.

Sam glowered rottenly. "Thanks to Miles, his name is now synonymous with Ron Jeremy's."

After a quick internet reference, the four present Autobots were now just as bewildered and afraid as the two humans who had reacted instantly to the mentioning of Starscream and this "Ron Jeremy" character. Will and Epps exchanged looks of varying humoured disbelief, before returning their stares to the others.

"And where the hell did that come from?" Epps dared to ask. Miles obligingly gave him the condensed version, which no less diluted the 'ew factor' of thinking about Starscream as a porn star.

"How is that even _possible_?" Sunstreaker demanded. Obviously he was a little more grossed out than the rest of the Cybertronians that any one of their species was being compared to a- a _porn star._ "Our anatomy is nothing like yours! Least of all that fragger Starscream's! What in the pit is wrong with you!? "

Miles yelped and leaped over his chair to hide behind it. An angry Sunstreaker was not a safe Sunstreaker, especially not for someone only one fourth his size. "I don't know, man! I just thought the stuff up! It's not supposed to make sense!"

Sideswipe grabbed his brother's arms. "Sunny, don't! You'll blow our cover! Don't shoot him!"

Blaster laughed as he switched the TV from whatever he was watching to, well, an example of the issue at hand… "Interestin' matin' habits they have, huh?" he asked Bumblebee bemusedly, who made the mistake of actually looking at the screen.

Eyes from every other off duty officer in the room, not to mention a few sets of optics, swivelled to the large screen, now displaying a couple of humans exemplifying the act of biological procreation in a very creative way.

"Turn it off, Blaster! Turn it off!" Epps shouted over the _noise_ that was coming out from the speakers. "This is not the time for your weird tastes in programming!"

"No wait- give it second!" Miles cried, forgetting his fear and leaping back over his chair. "I've seen this one!"

"_Miles!"_ Sam yelled in disbelief.

Bumblebee was horrified and hypnotized by the bizarre thing that was taking place on the TV. He sat with his optics wide, his processors starting to fritz from trying to comprehend it all. Absently, '_Sexual Healing'_ started drifting from his speakers.

Mikaela sighed and shook her head sadly. _"Males," _she sighed. Utterly ignoring the uproar going on around her, she walked up to the inset screen and smacked the off button. Instantly, everyone froze as if they had been caught in a spotlight. The only noise now was coming from Bumblebee as he continued to play his song.

Will stared around himself at the chaos that had been instilled in the room in a mere matter of seconds. He raised his arms and began waving the other humans back to their previous activities. "Go on, show's over! Nothing to see here folks! Break it up! Go back to your lives!"

Sideswipe wrestled his brother to the floor again, his vents huffing from the effort. He forced himself and Sunstreaker to hunch back into their semi-hiding place beneath the wide second level balcony that led to the few human barracks housed in the base.

Awkward silence descended on the group, with Sam tapping Bumblebee worriedly on the shin to snap his friend out of the porn-induced stupor he'd been sent into. Epps walked over to Blaster and tapped a couple times on the hard outer plating of the bot's head.

"Generally, there's a right time to show that sort of thing, and then there's a wrong time, man. This was a _wrong_ time," he said.

Will searched for something to say to finally take the awkwardness away, using every ounce of mediator's skill for the task. "So… what was that about Prowl?" he asked.

It took a few moments for Miles to catch up to what the captain was talking about. "Oh, yeah, uh- Prowl, right. I was just wondering why "_Prowl_," y'know? Just like why "_Starscream_"?" He was met with several blank stares, to which he returned with a mild pout. "Hasn't _anyone_ ever wondered about their names?!"

"No, Miles, that could very well just be you," Mikaela sighed.

"Then just hear me out, okay?"

"Last time I heard you, you scarred me for life," she deadpanned.

"Aw, come on, it's not that bad this time!" Miles whined. "Prowl's a cop-bot, right?"

"_Robocop,"_ Sam laughed under his breath.

"I mean… yeah, his alt mode is a cop car. He's like the enforcer around here, keeps the peace and all-."

"Don't we know it," Sideswipe grumbled.

"- He's got almost every freaking cop nickname and pun out there to use, and he just settles for _Prowl_? Come on, _lame_!"

"Oh Prickly One is not known for his coolness," Blaster pointed out.

"Besides, I already _told _you, Miles, they pick names that suit their personalities, not their alt modes," Mikaela stressed.

"Uh-huh, so it's just one big comic coincidence then that _Ratchet_'s a Search and Rescue vehicle, _Blaster_'s a monster huge stereo, and here's the best one- _Bumblebee_'s a frickin' _yellow_ Camaro with _black_ racing stripes? Now tell me that there's no influence from their alt modes!"

Bumblebee chuckled, looking down at his bumblebee coloured armor. "He's got a point, Mikaela," he said.

"See, I even got Bee-boy on my side," Miles said smugly. "So why can't Prowl just have named himself a policey name, huh?"

"Miles, you can't be serious," Sam sighed. "The things we call police… well, "_The Fuzz_," "_The Heat_," "_Smokey_," "_Feds,_" _Pigs_," "_The Po-Po_"- none of those things are what you really call 'giant alien robot name material'…"

"…I don't think anyone would ever take Prowl seriously if he ever called himself _Po-Po_." Bumblebee said, glaring at Sideswipe to make a point. The red melee warrior was taking great enjoyment out of _Po-Po_, his entire frame shaking from mirth. _"Po-Po!" _he whispered in a singsong voice.

"Does it really matter? Nobody ever really takes the good cop seriously anyways," Epps laughed. "It's always the bad cop who scares you straight."

Sam suddenly conjured up the image of a particularly _bad_ cop-bot chasing him through a parking lot so many years ago. "Yeah, it's always the bad cop that scares you straight…" If he hadn't been straight then, he was now.

"Who ever said Prowl was the good cop?" Sunstreaker huffed. "He's a downright fragging aft when he wants to be."

Blaster grinned impishly. "From what I've heard from Jazz, Prowl can be a very _bad_ cop when he wants to be."

Instantly, the twins slapped their hands over their audio receptors.

"_Primus_, Blaster, that's Prowl you're talking about!" Sunstreaker roared. "_El Pricko_, remember!?"

Sideswipe pulled a pained grimace. "What I wouldn't give to be shot in the processor by an acid pellet right now…"

Although the whole concept of 'gay alien robots' was a little beyond what most of the humans could comprehend, Miles wasted no time in capitalizing on the opportunity. "So… Prowl's like the Cybertronian version of the cop from the _Village People_, huh?"

Bumblebee chimed in with a help, "_YMCA!" _from his speakers.

"I guess you could say that," Blaster replied.

"I wonder which one that makes Jazz…."

Will laughed along with everyone else, really getting into the game. "Wait, wait, we haven't figured out Prowl's name first, let's save Jazz for later."

Miles grinned. "Getting into the name game, are we?"

The Army Ranger laughed, nodding, "Yeah, I guess I am." He gave a full body stretch, about to try his own crack at Prowl's name. "Okay, so Po-Po and gay pride aside, Prowl's name basically means stealth, right? To prowl after someone, like stalking them, being stealthy… sneaking up behind people with them even knowing-."

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker exchanged long suffering glances. Yeah, that sounded like a mech they knew…

The red twin released a long sigh. "You don't even know when he's coming… he just shows up, _out of nowhere. _One moment you're having a good time, rigging something for a bit of harmless fun-."

"_Harmless, he says," _Mikaela muttered disbelievingly.

"-and then, suddenly, _he's_ there, ruining it all. "You're in the brig for this, Sideswipe" he says, or "you're pulling a double shift for that one, Sideswipe." It doesn't matter how much I plan, or how hard I work to make sure he'll be somewhere else, _somehow _he always manages to sneak up behind me and-."

"Sideswipe, mute it!" Sunstreaker snapped, swatting at his brother. "You're going to jinx us!"

Blaster warily scanned the area. "Nah, we're still cool."

Epps was grinning up at the traumatized looking mechs. "So he really gets inside your heads, huh?"

"You have no idea," Sunstreaker growled. "We can't make a move without him suddenly being on our afts. He makes a point to know what we're doing, where we're going, and who we're with at all times. He acts like our freaking sparkling-sitter, except in a cold, sparkless sort of way."

"He strikes when you least expect it!" Sideswipe shuddered.

"That's because you two have proven millennia after millennia that you can't be trusted when you're left to your own devices," Bumblebee said. "Rigging Prowl's office today for the pit of it is a perfect example."

"Except this time he's not going to get us," Sideswipe replied determinedly.

A light suddenly went on in Sam's head. "_Prowl… _striking when you least expect it… oh my God. Guys! Guys, he's like a- a _ninja_!"

"A ninja?" Mikaela repeated sceptically.

Sam laughed. "Yeah, a ninja! A robot ninja!"

Will chuckled. "That would make him a ninja-bot."

"Sneaking up behind ya, never knowing where he's going to strike next- yeah, I'd say "_Prowl_" is a good name for a ninja-bot," Epps concluded. "He's silent but deadly."

"Silent but deadly, huh?" Miles repeated thoughtfully. He huffed a laugh, "So are some farts, but he's not calling himself _Tootie_."

Snorts of rude laughter suddenly burst from them all, their bodies shaking from the uncontrollable mirth that tickled their insides. The name game was quickly going from something for fun to just another way to never be able to look at a bot the same way again. Hell, they were never going to be able to look at Prowl without thinking 'silent but deadly' ever again.

Without the notice of the humans or other mechs, Blaster's laughter cut short. He bolted up from his la-Z-boy, not believing what his sensors were telling him. _"Uh oh…"_

Miles turned over in his chair, fixing Bumblebee with a Cheshire grin. "Hey, Bee, can Cybertronians… y'know- can they-."

Bumblebee's optics glittered with mirth as he caught on to what Miles was asking. He stood up and walked around the couches to the relatively large space behind- enough for him to transform. Just as he began to shift and compact into his sleek, definitely sexy alt mode, the head of the Unmaker himself appeared around the entrance to the human sector.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe froze, their optics locking onto the pricks of ice cold light that shone as Prowl's optics. He'd finally found them.

The tactician stepped into the room with all the silent grace his new ninja-bot status dubbed him, easily making his way around the parting humans towards the far corner of the large rec room.

Quickly, the humans caught sight of the approaching storm cloud too. Their blood ran cold, hurriedly leaping up to wave to Bumblebee to get him to stop his demonstration. The scout was blind to the oncoming danger, revving his engine to a husky purr of high performance.

"Bumblebee! Bumblebee, don't do it!" Sam called desperately.

Prowl was now looming over the Camaro, his optics locked solely on the prey of his hunt. "You three are so-."

**POOF!**

A thick, greasy gaseous cloud exploded from the exhaust pipe of the Camaro, coating the tactician's lower legs in a dusty layer of black soot; the Cybertronian equivalent of a fart.

Mikaela clapped her hands over her mouth. "Oh my God…"

Movement of every kind froze within the room.

The tactician's optics dropped to his now sullied armor, a shiver passing over him. He raised his hard gaze to lock with the twins again. "You two. Brig. _Now_." He said darkly. He jerked his sharp gaze towards Blaster. "You, go turn off that damn music in my office, and then you're in the brig."

Snapping up to follow the orders lest they wished to suffer the wrath of Prowl, the three mechs trooped out as quickly as they could, feeling the ice of the tactician's stare as he watched them every step of the way.

Finally, he fixed an undecipherable stare on the hard, striped top of Bumblebee's alt mode. The scout unfolded into his bipedal form slowly, guiltily.

"And _you_," Prowl growled. "You and I are going to have a long talk about… _etiquette_."

"Yes, sir," Bumblebee mumbled. He kept his head down as he made his way passed his superior, sneaking out of the human sector with only a single, helpless look back over his shoulder to the wide-eyed, on looking humans. There was nothing they could do for him as Prowl followed him out.

They just barely caught the absent hum that was drifting from the deceptively stoic mech,

"_Every breath you take  
__Every move you make  
__Every bond you break  
__Every step you take  
__I'll be watching you…" _

Miles smothered the obnoxious snort that threatened to come out his nose. "Yeah, that's the perfect song for a ninja-bot."


	3. Shut Up and Drive

Okay- not near as spectacular as the last two chapters; I couldn't come up with a lot of material for this one. . I really wracked my brain for this! I'm so terrified that this chapter won't live up to the greatness that the last seemed to aspire to. I sincerely hope that this will inspire laughter from some of you!

"_Now you know, and knowing is half the battle…"_- super bad reference to the 1980's Public Service Announcements that featured TF's teaching kids lessons. I couldn't resist.

_Brobdingnagian- _means really, really big. A word probably used by Perceptor a lot to describe any Transformers compared to a human. He probably uses _Lilliputian_, or really, really small, to describe the humans a lot.

_Streamline- _A song used in some Pepsi commercials. If you haven't seen them, go look it up on YouTube.

And, I have got to say that the last chapter's reviews just blew me away. I practically keeled over in excitement when I saw that so many people enjoyed it! My greatest and sincerest thanks goes to; **jazzbot8907, Bluebird Soaring, AutobotStarlight, Jason M. Lee, blood shifter, Goldendreams257, Fire From Above, Soului, Katsumoto-sama, Pheonix-13, ladyofthebookworms, cmdrtekk, star's dreams, Carmilla DeWinter, Bunnylass, InzanityRulz, Dragon260, Angel of Deception, Moonlight black rose, October 13****th****, Cassiopeia1979, Arahsi, autumn sparrow, Duvet, Cedarleaf, ShivaVixen, Litahatchee, chigirigi, guess**, and **inuficcrzy.** All of you are too wonderful for words!

Disclaimer- For legal purposes, I DO NOT own Transformers, nor do I own Avril Lavigne's "_When You're Gone," "I'm with you_," or Faith Hill's "_Where are you Christmas_," or Paffendorf's "_Where are you_?" or David Mathews Band "_Where are you Going_," or Kirk Franklin's "_Looking for You_," OR Rihanna's _"Shut Up and Drive."_

**The Name Game**

Glancing to his watch absently, Sam sighed. It was well after twelve and Bumblebee still had not returned from his 'etiquette talk' with Prowl, though _how_ any sort of talk could last for over two hours was well beyond what any of the humans could comprehend. While waiting up for their misfortunate friend, the five humans made themselves comfortable and simply made small talk with each other- carefully avoiding such terms as "_El Pricko_," "_Po-Po_," and "_Ron Jeremy_."

Around them, the human section was slowly beginning to empty of life, the other human personnel of the base making their tired way out to go home for the night, or, for some, making the trek up the to the second level were their sleeping quarters were located.

Sam was in no particular hurry for sleep, since he had not far to go to make it to his designated room which he shared with Bumblebee. Will and Epps, as well, were in no hurry to leave either, both of them capable of hopping a ride from Ironhide or Jazz. It was Mikaela and Miles who depended on Bumblebee showing up so that they could go home, neither of them possessing their own rooms in the base nor any other means of transport. Though Sam was more than willing to offer Mikaela his bed for the night, he wasn't sure if he was willing to share mattress space with Miles as well.

"So… anybody think Bee's coming back soon?" Sam asked.

"Maybe after Prowl's done going ninja-bot on his ass," Miles shrugged, stretching out over the armrests of his chair so that his lanky legs dangled over one side and his head flopped lamely over the other.

"That's not helpful, Miles," Mikaela chastised. "Prowl can't do much to Bumblebee for simply- uh, _farting_ on him. I'm sure Bee will be back sooner or later."

"I sure hope so," the blond groaned. "Bee's my only drive home and I've got a one o'clock curfew. If I break it one more time this week, Mom will break my neck."

"That's what you get for living in your parent's basement, kid," Epps laughed.

"It's better than nothing," Miles replied. "No rent and free laundry services, what more could I ask for?"

"A life, maybe?" Sam offered.

"Y'know, I've been looking for a life on eBay for a while now," he retorted, smiling upside down at his friend. "Funny thing is, their all used."

"I guess the only good thing you can find on eBay nowadays are family heirlooms imprinted with maps to powerful alien artefacts hidden in secret government facilities," Will sighed in mock disappointment.

"Go figure," Epps laughed.

"And you want to know the worst part of it all?" Sam asked, his face falling into a disgruntled pout. "Right after everything went down in Mission City, I got a bid on those stupid glasses."

Mikaela sighed and rolled her eyes. "Sam, it's been years- _let it go_." It was always a sore spot when Sam brought that up; he had already gotten the car and the girl, and just when he was about to get the money too, he found out that the glasses that had been accidentally crushed in the final battle.

He turned to his girlfriend with wide, suffering eyes. "But I was _this close_, Mikaela, _this close_ to selling them," he held his index finger and thumb close together to demonstrate exactly how close he was. Apparently, he had been _very_ close.

"Just get over it, man," Miles said. "Suck up the irony of it and deal with the fact that you probably wouldn't have sold them anyways- you kept all that other junk you got from your great-great-grandfather."

Sam pursed his lips, still pouting. "They have sentimental value now," he replied stubbornly. "He might not have gotten around to exploring all of the Arctic Circle, but he was the first man to ever meet a giant evil alien robot frozen in ice- that's got to count for something."

"Maybe you Witwicky's just attract alien attention?" Will offered. "It could be in your genes."

"That would explain where Dad found Mom," Sam replied, grinning.

As they laughed, a slight clamour arose from out in the hall beyond the human sector, strains of music floating in as lyrics from a mishmash of songs clashed against one another above the varied voices of the bots playing them. As the humans listened in to the approaching music, there was a definite theme to the lyrics being blasted.

"_WHERE ARE YOU?!... When you're gone… I'm with youuuuu… Where are you Christmas?... Where you are is where I want to be… I've Been Looking For You…!"_

Epps stared over the back of the couch. "-the hell is that?"

The answer came soon enough as four microbots came spilling in, two bipedal ones, two quadruped, followed shortly by Jazz stepping over them and making his way over to where the humans were gathered in the corner. Scrambling right under his feet to beat the mech to the small group of humans, it was the quadruped bots that made it there first, then their bipedal companions, and together, the music that was blasting from them overpowered every other noise in the room.

"Where is he-?!" "Have you seen him-?!" "I heard Prowl found him-!" "IS BLASTER DEAD?!"

"Hey! Hey- we can't hear a word you're saying! One at a time, if you don't mind!" Will shouted over the cacophony as Blaster's symbiotes clamoured to be heard over the music and their fellow bots. They were tiny creatures, no bigger than Frenzy, but infinitely friendlier looking- and louder by far.

Epps reached over and rapped poor, fritzing Eject on the head. "What's up with all o' you?" he asked.

On the verge of what looked like a breakdown, Eject turned his wide optics on the tech seargent. "We've been looking for Blaster for hours!" he exclaimed, and if he could have cried, a river of tears would have been falling. "Nobody's seen him, or heard from him, and none of the sensors in the base can pick him up! It's like he's completely disappeared! Not even a word to his beloved creations, and he takes off! Just like that! Gone! Where's the love, man?! Where's the love?!"

Jazz sighed and crouched down to be on a better level with the humans, gently brushing aside his fellow bots. "They're pretty wound up," he said, shrugging.

"We can see that," Epps pointed out. "Why'd you bring them here?"

The silver mech shrugged. "Figured Blaster migh' be hangin' wit' ya like he was earlier."

Steeljaw and Ramhorn leaned against each other, their speakers teaming up to croon the sweet sounds of Avril Lavigne. _"When you're gone, the pieces of my heart are missing you-." _

"Prowl found him already," Will sighed over the music. "Trooped him and twins off a couple of hours ago."

"Ah know that, it's all over the base. Ah meant I thought he came back here after that 'cause none o' 'em are in the brig right now. They never even made it down there. Ah told these guys here that Ah'd help 'em look."

Miles perked up, suddenly a lot more interested. "You mean they made a run for it?"

"Considering that both Sideswipe and Sunstreaker transform into Lamborghinis that can hit 0 to 60 in 3.4 seconds, I'd say they rolled for it _really fast_," Mikaela replied. Sam gave her an admiring look; her knowledge of the vast world of cars never ceased to amaze him.

Eject chirruped morosely, seeking his sister's side to lean on. "It means he don't care 'bout us no more!" he whined. Steeljaw and Ramhorn continued on with their musical accompaniments as they wallowed in their overly dramatic misery. _"And when you're gone, the face I came to know is missing too…" _

Rewind patted Eject oddly on the back, rolling her optics. "So, none of you have seen Blaster or the twins?" she asked.

"No, sorry," Epps shrugged. A wail of disastrous proportions rang from the inconsolable Eject. Jazz sighed and scooped the four little bots up, depositing them on his shoulders.

"Well, thanks anyways," he said, straightening up. "Guess we'll just keep looking fer 'em before Prowl manages ta tear the base apart at the seams."

"Good luck," Epps called.

"Yeah, Ah'll need it," Jazz sighed, smirking gently. "Ah share my quarters with the mech, so Ah'm gonna have ta deal with him after." He turned to leave as Sam shot up with a question.

"Jazz, before you go- have you by any chance seen Bumblebee anywhere?"

The sliver mech shrugged. "Nah, not since Prowl ordered him ta stay in his office until he found the others. He's probably still there."

"You mean Bee's been locked away awaiting trial this whole time?!" Miles shouted.

"Ya could put it that way, yeah," Jazz replied. "Ah don't think he'll be driving ya home ta'night." He reached up and flicked Eject lightly as the deep-blue microbot began to lament to the music his two brothers were playing- a different Avril Lavigne song. _"I'm standing on a bridge, I'm waiting in the dark… I thought that you'd be here by now..." _

"You go continue your search, Jazz. Don't worry about Miles and Mikaela, we'll get them home somehow," Will assured the mech, waving him out.

Jazz nodded and made his way back out of the human sector, his own speakers now pumping out some harder, faster beats to drown out the continuous strings of crying bots and sappy music that was being force fed into his audios.

"They sure do like our music," Sam laughed as they all sat listened to the slowly fading cacophony of clashing music and wailing microbots.

"Ugh, sometimes a little too much," Mikaela sighed, leaning against her boyfriend's side. "That's all I hear when a bot comes into the shop looking for a wax job or for someone to pick the rocks out of his tires- it's just music, music, _music_. Non-stop. Unless it's Bluestreak, then it's just talking, lots and lots of _talking_."

"That shouldn't surprise you though," Will said. "With a name like Bluestreak, he's bound to be a talker."

"How so?" Sam asked, cocking his head to the side. They were falling back into the trap that was the name game…

"You know the old saying, "talking a blue streak?" It pretty much means saying a lot really fast without stopping to take a breath- and considering that Bluestreak doesn't exactly have to breathe, he doesn't have to stop any time soon." Will laughed a little. "Bluestreak's name is as much a name as it is a warning that you're going to get your ear talked off when he's around."

Mikaela laughed. "He can talk until he's _blue_ in the face."

Miles looked as if a sudden epiphany struck him. "No way! I finally get his name now!" he exclaimed. "I could never understand why he would name himself 'Bluestreak" when he's not even freaking blue! He's grey!"

Sam leaned forward and patted his friend. "Well, now you know," he said in much the same manner one would speak to a small child, "and knowing is half the battle."

"Hey, lay off, dude," Miles pouted, smacking Sam away. "I just thought he was a little colour blind or something- I've never heard of someone talking a blue streak before."

"Go take a shift with Bluestreak and you'll get to experience it first hand," Epps offered. He had been unfortunate enough to draw the short straw a few times, forced to accompany the talkative mech on parameter patrol.

"Nah, I'll take you're word for it," Miles laughed. "I'll stick with being Perceptor's guinea pig for now- he doesn't talk that much, and when he does talk I don't understand him anyways, so I've stopped listening."

"Aww, is poor Miles intimidated by the big words?" Sam teased.

Miles straightened up in his chair, looking unusually serious. "Dude, do you know what _brobdingnagian_ means?"

"…no."

"Then I rest my case."

To steer things away from Miles' and Sam's stunted vocabularies, Will turned to Mikaela, posing a question.

"What do you do when a music enthusiast comes rolling into _Hot Autobodies_?"

Mikaela considered the question, and then shrugged. "Suffer through it, I guess," she answered. "It's not so bad when bots like Jazz or Bee come rolling in for a wash, since they play pretty good tunes. It's when others come in that I have to brace myself; Hound likes to play country, a lot of the older ones like classical 'cause of the mathematical sequences to it, and guess what the Technobots like to listen to when they roll in?"

"Techno?" Sam ventured.

Mikaela groaned and nodded. "You have no idea how painful it is to wash a drill tank while listening to _Steamline_."

"You mean that song from that old Pepsi commercial?" Will asked.

"Yeah."

"At least none of them are _dancing_ like the people in the commercial," the Army Ranger shrugged. "God forbid any of the Autobots learn to dance- it's bad enough watching humans trying to dance."

"I bet they could do 'the robot' pretty good," Miles offered.

"I know Jazz can bust a move," Epps said, grinning. "He'd kick my ass any day in a dance off."

"With a name like '_Jazz'_ would you expect anything less from him?" Sam asked. "The music jazz is all about coolness, being smooth and having style- things that our robo-Jazz just oozes with."

"Even when he transforms, he's got a couple moves in there- though, I don't know if that's on purpose, or not," Mikaela laughed.

"Knowing him, on purpose," Epps replied. "He likes his moves, and he likes his music- poor guy nearly had a heart attack when Will tried to play a country CD once."

"I almost had to walk home," Will said, shaking his head.

"Try playing jazz next time," Epps offered. "It's easier on the ears." To which Will simply grumbled, disgruntled.

"I'm surprised that you haven't come up with anything irrevocably scarring to make fun of Jazz's name with yet," Sam said, fixing Miles with an impressed look.

The blond sulked, crossing his arms stubbornly. "I've been trying to, but it's hard coming up with all that jazz," he admitted. "Pun intended."

"Better luck next time, buddy," Will consoled.

Miles sat mulishly, his fun spoiled now that he couldn't come up with something to make fun of Jazz's name with. Getting desperate, he leapt up and announced "Jazz hands!"

There was an awkward silence as the other just stared at the broadly grinning blond.

"…what?" Mikaela managed to sputtered.

Miles did a quick little dance around the mismatched couches, his hands out flat and his fingers wiggling wildly. "Come on, _jazz hands_, Mikaela! _Jazz hands_!" He wiggled his fingers in her face.

She shoved the wildly waving fingers out of her face, shooing the boy away. "You're stretching it, Miles," she warned.

He sat down in a huff, crossing his arms and legs tightly to himself. "Ruin it for me, why don't you," he grumped. "I was just going to point out that Prowl might like some jazz hands on him-."

"You _really_ stretching it now, Miles," Mikaela replied, though not without a hint of humour in her voice.

Speaking of Prowl… Sam checked his watch once more, now seeing that it was almost one in the morning. "Poor Bee's been trapped in Prowl's office for a while now," he sighed.

"I say we go rescue him," Miles said. "He's trapped in the Po-Po's office because of us- the least we could do is get break him out."

"I suppose," Sam agreed reluctantly, easily swayed for the cause of helping his alien best friend.

"Miles, you just don't want to break curfew," Mikaela accused.

"That too, but a good cause is a good cause," Miles nodded unashamedly. "We can kill two birds with one stone, we get Bumblebee away from the Fuzz and we can hop a free ride home! It'll be worth it, I promise! Let's just go get him!"

Sam eased himself up from his seat, bored with just sitting around waiting. "I'm in."

He gave Mikaela a pleading look. She sighed. "I'm in too…" The three of them looked to the two army boys still seated on their couch.

"Hey, don't look at us," Will said, raising his hands. "We have rides home."

"Fine, it'll just be us three on the rescue mission," Miles said, leading the way out of the human sector. "FREE BEE!"

* * *

"_I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee, won't my mommy be so proud me! I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee-."_

"Miles, cut it out!" Mikaela hissed as the trio snuck along the towering, silent halls of the Autobot base.

"Sorry," he replied. "It seemed appropriate."

"This is the dumbest thing we've ever done," Sam sighed.

"No it isn't," Miles countered confidently.

"Oh really? Then what is?"

"You remember that time you, me, and Bee were up in Maine during that snow storm looking for the bot that crashed there?"

"Yeah, sort of."

"Remember when we dared each other to lick Bee to see if ours tongues would stick?"

Sam snorted. "How could I forget?" It took Bumblebee a whole two hours to heat himself up hot enough to thaw the humans' tongues off his armor.

"Well, _that_ was the dumbest thing we've ever done."

"You have a point…"

"This is probably only the third dumbest."

Mikaela made a noise of exasperation from behind the two. "I don't even want to know what the second was."

Miles peered back at his fellow freedom fighters as they crept ever more quietly towards their goal. "It involved Crayola window markers and a recharging Ironhide…"

"I'm surprised _that_ wasn't the dumbest," she replied, rolling her eyes.

"It would have been, except we blamed it all on Sunny 'n Sides, so he went after them instead. And then the forth dumbest thing we've done would be trying to outrun a pair of pissed off Lamborghini Reventons." He tiptoed along the corridor, carefully plastered against the walls, eyes darting every which way. Behind him, Sam and Mikaela walked normally, though trying to keep as quiet as possible.

They turned down the commanders' hall where all the offices were located. It was silent now, not a single strain of The Police to be heard anywhere. Doors that were probably six times the height of the humans towered around them, looking ominous. Each one was unmarked since the Autobots had no need to label any of the doors- they could just access the base's schematics in their heads and find out exactly where they were at any time. For the humans trying to navigate the enormous base's halls, it was all pretty much a game of "guess what's behind door number one..."

"Hey, Sam?" Miles began.

Sam knew this tone too well by now. "No, Miles, I've never thought about Bumblebee's name before. I thought it was pretty much self-explanatory by the paint job."

"But _why_ would anyone want to name themselves after a cutesy little bumblebee?" he whined.

"Maybe because a bee is small but really strong, super resourceful and useful, and they can defend themselves with stings that hurt like hell," Mikaela said.

"He could have named himself something a little cooler, like 'Hornet' or 'Wasp' or even 'Killer Bee'. Something that doesn't make everyone think of cute, fuzzy little honey gathering bumblebees buzzing about a field of flowers."

"Oh, just lay off him, Miles. He's yellow and black and his name is Bumblebee; get over it." Sam sighed.

"But what if he wasn't yellow and black; do you think he still would have named himself 'Bumblebee'?" Miles pressed, much to the annoyance of his companions. "What if he was white with black racing stripes? He could have called himself 'Zebra,' or if he was orange with black racing stripes, he'd 'Tiger' or maybe 'Tigertron' for a more robotic twist."

Mikaela rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and maybe if he was black with white stripes, we could call him 'Skunk'."

"It would fit with his recent escapade of blowing exhaust fumes all over his superiors," Sam pointed out.

"A stunt that was entirely _our_ fault for goading him into it," Mikaela argued.

"We're getting him out, aren't we?"

"We wouldn't have to if Miles hadn't of started this in the first place."

"Oh, come on, don't start in on Miles!" Sam hissed. "Everybody knows he's a couple circuits short of a circuit breaker, more so now since he started working with Perceptor-."

"_Shh_, you two," Miles urged, waving at them to shut up. "Do you hear Rihanna coming from somewhere?"

Sam gave his girlfriend a half-cocked smirk. "See what I mean?" he asked.

Miles gave him a jab in the arm. "Seriously, dude. I hear Rihanna coming from somewhere."

They all paused, just barely catching a few lines that haunted the hall. _"My engine's ready to explode, explode, explode. So start me up and watch me go, go, go…" _

"Sounds like some body wants to be set free," Sam said, peering around at the doors lining the walls. He crept away from the wall and began pressing his ears to doors.

From behind him, Miles whispered uselessly, "float like a butterfly!" in hopes that Sam display some of the light footed talent he displayed so well when get chased by giant evil alien robots.

Sam sent a dry look back at Miles, relatively aware that that very saying could have been what inspired Bumblebee's English name. He said nothing though, following his ears o where he thought the music was coming from. Upon reaching one of the non-descript doors, he pressed an ear to the cold metal. "Music's coming from in here."

"It's Prowl's office, then" Mikaela guessed. She went to the microbot–level control panel and stared at the alien glyphs that covered it. Humans, like the microbots, were too small to activate the door's automatic opening system since they were too small to be registered. They had to open doors by way of manual activation. Having never been taught to read Cybertronian, Mikaela knew very little of what she was looking at, and therefore came to the decision that it mattered very little if her eyes were open or closed while trying the control panel. She closed her eyes and jabbed randomly, gasping when she heard the heavy door hiss open.

Bumblebee continued to mope in the chair he sat in, figuring it was only Prowl returned from the hunt. His surprise was understandable, then, when a pair of tiny, organic hands clapped down on the armor of his foot, rapping quickly to catch his attention. Muting his music, he glanced down with curious blue optics.

"Did Prowl decide to have a talk with you too, Sam?" the scout asked, staring down at his human's grinning face.

"Nah, we're busting you out, Bee!" he replied. "Come on, quick, before somebody catches us!"

Bee slid from his chair and crouched down to be on a better level with the three eager humans standing at his feet. "Have you three even thought this through? Prowl's already going on the fritz looking for Blaster and the twins again- if he catches us, we're done for; you'll be spending the rest of your natural lives in our brig."

"Then we don't let the Fuzz catch us; it's as simple as that" Miles laughed, entirely too confident in himself and the fact that his plan was going along perfectly. "Once we're out of here, we'll hide you at _Hot Autobodies, _or you can come live in my garage for a while until everything dies down."

The yellow scout considered this for a few seconds, deciding to throw caution to the wind and take the humans up on their offer. He began to shift from his bipedal form, pieces quickly falling into place to form his 09' Camaro alt mode. Just as the sequence completed though, there came a hiss from the door and a stunned silence that followed as the new company comprehended what was going on.

Miles looked like a fish out of water as he goggled up at Prowl. "It's the Po-P-."

"IT'S PROWL!" Sam screeched, taking his stunned friend and whipping him into Bee's interior, himself following suit immediately after. Mikaela dived for the passenger side. The Camaro's engine gunned to a roar, doors slamming shut and locking instantly. The music that had once been muted now screamed exploded out the speakers.

"_GOES FROM 0 TO 60 IN THREE POINT FIVE! BABY, YOU GOT KEYS! NOW SHUT UP AND DRIVE!!" _

Scorch marks of smoking black tire seared the spotless metal floor as Bumblebee took off like demon, pulling up on two wheels as he shot between the narrow space between Prowl's legs. Once into the corridor, he hit the floor hard with all four tires squealing, rattling him so thoroughly that another plume of black soot was expelled from his exhaust, coating the back of Prowl's legs this time, and then Bumblebee and his three rescuers were off screaming down the halls.


	4. Technical Difficulties

This ended up as more of an action chapter than a humour chapter- I tried hard, but inspiration was hard to come by! . Next chapter will have humour (hopefully!) and it won't be so horrendously long! For people wondering about the TF PSAs, yes, there are both G.I. Joe and Transformer ones, but I was not aware of the G.I. Joe ones until some of you pointed that fact out; the TF ones are on YouTube if you want to see them. Plus, regarding Rewind's mysterious sex-change- sorry, I had made her a femme in my other story, _What Time We Have Left_ and it simply carried over. Sorry if I caused any confusion.

The greatest and sincerest thanks go out to my most wonderful and kind reviewers, because you are the people who keep this little breakaway from sanity going! XD May the universe shower you all with my overflowing amounts of gratitude to you all! Thank you so much **Dragon260, Jason M. Lee, blood shifter, PrimaBird, ****Cassiopeia1979, Bluebird Soaring, Arahsi, Soului, Goldendreams257, guess, star's dreams, j's 91, Fire From Above, Anita H, Shadow Vision, Violet Light, anime97fanatic, Bunnylass, amber Kat, chigirigi, DoodleWEE, Cougar66, AutobotStarlight, Jillian Jiggs, Sinead Rivka, AkaeritheShadow, Yami-Yugi3, Carmilla DeWinter, LoveHopes**, and **Burning Phoenix**!

Dedication to this chapter goes to the very kind and inspiring **Violet Light**, who gave me inspiration for this chapter through her wonderful review. **Violet,** this chapter is for you!

Disclaimer: I don't own Transformers, nor do I own "_Technical Difficulties_" by Julien-K.

**The Name Game**

Amidst the screams of burning rubber against cold metal floor and t.A.T.u blasting out from Bumblebee's speaker's _"-Not gonna get us! They're not gonna get us!" _was the exhilarated shrieks of the humans as phase one of their "Free Bee" mission was completed. Completing phase two, namely getting out of the base alive, was a debatable prospect at the moment. The heart stopping wail of police sirens chased them through the halls as Prowl matched speeds with Bumblebee, hot on his aft like the Unmaker himself. Had there ever been a time the normally logical tactician went postal, this would certainly be it.

"Pedal to the metal, Bumblebee! He's gaining!" Sam howled, pressed back into his guardian's leather interior by the sheer speeds they were going.

The Camaro's engine roared in answer, a sudden burst of impossible speed causing the front end to rear up before hitting ground again and screaming ahead of its pursuer. The speedometer was useless by this point at telling any of the humans exactly how fast this high-speed chase was _actually_ going. Hitting a long, straight stretch of hallway, they could have sworn they heard a sonic boom following them. The chase between the two robots in disguise was breaking everything from Guinness records to every law of physics known to man.

Breaking records and laws meant little to the pursuer and pursued, as both of them continued to climb in speed to what felt like interstellar warp capabilities.

"This is probably the most wicked car chase I've ever been in!" Mikaela yelled.

Sam chanced a glance over at his wide-eyed girlfriend. "Better then Bumblebee and Barricade's chase?" Obviously referring to the momentous day when both of them learned that they were not alone in the universe, and their neighbours just happened to be giant alien robots.

Mikaela opened her mouth to answer, but was suddenly thrown into the passenger side door was Bumblebee swerved to avoid the acid pellets that just exploded in front of him. Once recovered, she shot Sam an exhilarated look. "Definitely better," she replied emphatically.

Miles had his face shoved into the back window, watching Prowl's relentless pursuit of them. Even if he had been the one to suggest Bee's rescue, he was desperately wishing that his so-called friends would have done what they normally did when he suggested stupid things and _ignore him_. _Hello_, **Rule Number 1** of the _Guide Book to Being Miles' Friend_ practically screams _"In all possible cases, if Miles __**thinks**__ it's a good idea, then it's really __**NOT**_ How hard is it to follow that single little rule?!

The Camaro swerved once again as acid pellets whizzed by, each one intent on catching the car's wheels in order to stop it, or in the least, slow it down.

Struggling against the massive g-forces that were plastering him to his seat, the blond managed to punch his friend in the arm. "Sam?!"

"Yeah?!"

"Scratch what I said earlier! _This_ is officially the dumbest thing we've ever done!!"

Sam glanced back at his friend through the rear view mirror. There was a panicked grin plastered to his face. "No argument here!"

They were all suddenly jolted forward by a massive impact on Bumblebee's rear end. It seemed Prowl had finally caught up again; somehow, his logic circuits deigned _ramming _the ass of the car he was chasing as an appropriate method of subduing them.

"We are _so_ going to die when he catches us," Miles hissed.

"Then we'll just have to make sure he doesn't catch us!" Mikaela shouted, her arms and legs braced against the dashboard for dear life.

"That's what I'm trying to do-!" Bumblebee yelled just as his backend was rammed again.

The Dodge Charger's paint was quite visibly covered in a thick layer of soot, marring the black-and-white colour scheme. The sirens wailed, lights flashed, and there was hardly any regard for public safety as it weaved through the halls with reckless abandon after its quarry. Prowl must have had the mother of all logic-circuit meltdowns for him to be acting in such an irrational manner.

Daring a single look out the back at their pursuer, it was the most pissed off cop cruiser any of them had ever seen. Sam returned his attention to the front first, a cold thrill shooting through him instantly.

"Oh shit, Bee! Corner! CORNER!!" he shrieked, pointing wildly up ahead at the sudden ninety degree turn in the hall.

"I see it! Hold on everyone!" Bumblebee's voice commanded. Engaging the brakes hard and spinning his wheels, he whipped himself into the air in the most gut-wrenching series of barrel rolls any of them had every experienced. Suddenly, the world became a massive kaleidoscope of churning colour and shapes. Miles, the only human who had _not_ had the insight to wear a seatbelt, was flipped about the car as if in a massive tumbler. Mikaela's grip of Sam's hands was bone crushing, just as Sam's peeling scream was eardrum shattering.

"The landing might be a little rough!" Bumblebee warned.

With incredible acrobatic ease that you would never think possible of a normal Camaro, Bumblebee landed squarely on his tires, amazingly now turned at exactly ninety degrees. With the scream of tires and the acrid smell of burning rubber filling the hall, they were off again, the squeal of Prowl's tires fading behind them as they realized the tactician was not up to trying the same daring stunt Bumblebee had just miraculously pulled off.

"Oh my God, I think we're going to make it!" Mikaela cried, recognizing the blur of the corridor they were now racing through. They were almost home free!

"Not if we don't make it under that barricade, we won't!" Sam bellowed, pointing at the rapidly descending wall of metal about to completely block their exit from the base.

"That's a lockdown procedure!" Mikaela shrieked indignantly.

"Lockdown?!" Miles wailed. "Dude, that is so overkill!"

"If we don't make it out before that door closes, we're going to be trapped in here, Miles!" Mikaela hissed. "And if that happens, '_overkill_' is going to take on a whole new meaning- especially the _kill_ part!"

"I only have enough left in my reserves for one last burst of speed!" Bumblebee shouted.

"Do it, Bee! Quickly!" Sam crowed. "There's only a little bit of room left!"

Once more, the engine roared like a beast out of hell, the car surging forward in a blur of black and yellow. Like a scene out of an Indiana Jones movie, they sped under the enclosing metal barricade by the gloss of Bee's paint. Upon greeting the outside world, dark and in a flurry of confused chaos, tires screamed and dirt kicked up as Bumblebee tore off towards the dirt path that would lead them to the highway and freedom.

In all the excitement caused by their narrow escape, no one noticed the four little creatures of metal slip into the base, right under the falling barricade, just as Bumblebee screamed out…

* * *

"_We are-!  
Experiencing technical difficulties…  
We are-!  
Experiencing technical difficulties…  
We are-!_

_Experiencing technical difficulties…  
Nothings working  
Please stand by…" _

"Glen?! Glen, turn that off!" Maggie demanded. For good measure, she whipped a pencil across the office at the particularly large plain of the hacker's back. It hit with deadly accuracy, causing the dark-skinned man to literally jump from his seat, fumbling with his precious PDA.

"Hey, what was that for? I ain't doing nothin' to ya!"

"Music. Off. Now." Maggie growled. "Sometimes you're as bad as an Autobot, blaring that junk all hours of the day and night."

"Aw, come on, Mags, it's just a little bit of music. It's not _that_ bad," Glen whined, fiddling longingly with the volume knob on his speakers.

"That '_little bit of music'_ is giving me _big_ migraine," she replied pitilessly. "It feels like my brain is imploding." Hunched as she was over her ongoing Cybertronian-to-English translational programs, limited on sleep, and drawn to the breaking point by her assistant's incessant need for noise at ass-crack o'clock in the morning, Maggie was _not_ in a good mood.

"That hurts, girl, right here." Glen thumped his chest over his heart. "Ya know how ta wound a guy."

Fully prepared a reply with another barb, Maggie's verbal assault was paused by a light knock on their joint office door. Epps and Will were silhouetted in the doorframe, leaning in causally.

"Picking on a brother, Mags? Got nothing better to do?" Epps asked, grinning at the mildly frustrated woman.

She slanted him an irritated look, sniffing testily. "I have plenty better to, but it's hard to get anything done when I have some God-forsaken music blaring in my ears at illegal volumes."

Will slid into the room and sidled up to Maggie's desk, littered as it was with various documents. "Sounds like somebody could use a break."

"I need a break from _him_," she said, pointing an accusing finger at the hacker on the other side of the room.

"Then you can go chill someplace where I'm not, and while you're at it, pop a couple happy pills. I'll be right here when you get back." Glen replied stubbornly. Years of dealing with the data analyst had granted him some semblance of a backbone, but not much.

"Well, maybe I will," she retorted. "I'll go take a good dose of my _happy pills_ and you can just sit there going deaf to your music as you try hacking into the Autobot's mainframe again! See if I care when Prowl drags you to the firing wall."

"_Ha_, you'll miss me when you're looking for someone to hack into traffic controls when you're late," Glen shot back, looking stubborn and juvenile for a man his age.

"Then I'll manage my time better so I _won't _miss you," she retorted in the same manner of juvenile stubbornness. "And if you don't stop irritating me, I'll let it slip to Prowl exactly _who_ downloaded those Police songs for Blaster."

"_You wouldn't_," he gasped.

"I wouldn't push my luck if I were you, man" Epps warned. "That's one pissed-off woman you're dealing with."

"And if she turns you over to Prowl, there's no telling what'll happen to you," Will pointed out, smirking. Both men were married; understandably, they knew what a pissed-of woman was capable of.

"I'm human, I'm not under Prowl's jurisdiction," Glen countered, though he sounded unsure of himself.

"Prowl's already had to deal with Blaster and the twins rigging his room, going on a wild goose chase after them, and wondering where the hell they disappeared to now, not to mention the high-speed chase that just went down between him and Bumblebee after Sam and the others broke him out of Prowl's office; I won't be surprised if every patience chip that mech has is already blown. If the second-in-command gets a hold of you, you're toast. I don't think it matters if you're human or not at this point."

"_Aw, damn" _Glen groaned. "Is he _that _pissed?"

"That and more," Will replied.

"What's he doing now? Did he finally get the music loop to stop?" Maggie inquired.

"Yeah, but I haven't heard much else since the lockdown," Epps shrugged, sliding into the small office offset from the upper-level of the human sector. Maggie looked up at him sharply, mouth forming an "o" when her eyes caught sight of the closing door.

"Lockdown? Epps, don't let the door clo-!" It slid shut with a curt snap. She sighed. _"Never mind." _

Will looked back at the now shut door quizzically. "What's wrong with the door?" he asked.

Maggie sighed and flopped back into her seat. "Nothing's _wrong_ with the door, per say," she grumped. "Now that a lockdown's been initiated, the entire human sector's been locked down for our protection. The door mechanism is locked until the lockdown is lifted."

Epps tried the door. It didn't budge. "Well… that's kind of stupid. What if this was a real situation and they needed our help?"

"It's a major design flaw; take it up with Red Alert, he's the one who came up with locking us humans in for our own protection," Maggie replied, looking sour. "He's demented over security precautions."

"Considering that his name is 'Red Alert,' he might be just a _little_ prone to jumping to the worse case scenario-." Will was cut off as a light punch to the back of his shoulder pitched him forward.

"Don't start, Lennox. If that game's contagious, I don't wanna catch it." Epps warned. He glanced over at the hapless hacker perched at his computer. "Can you get us out of here before it spreads?"

"Before what spreads?" he asked, confused.

"Possibly the worst game in the universe," the tech sergeant replied.

Taking the man's word for it, Glen cracked his knuckles and dove onto his keyboard. "Let's see what the master can do, then," he said smugly. Several screens were brought up, each with a high level security code encrypted on it. One after the other, Glen began breaking them down in a manner that was nearly inhuman; oh, what years of having no life and a love for hacking into high-security computers taught you.

Coming upon the last codes for the human sector's lockdown procedures, the hacker suddenly jumped back. Cybertronian wail flooded the speakers. Without warning, all lights, computers, and other electronic equipment promptly died.

After a period of silence in the pure darkness, Maggie's voice rang out, "_Nice,_ Glen."

"…that wasn't me."

"Yeah right," Maggie deadpanned.

"No, seriously. That wasn't me, I swear."

"Then who could it have possibly been? A Decepticon?" she asked, hardly believing in Glen's defence.

"Dunno. Maybe," Glen replied, a little mystified. "When I was trying to get into the Autobot's mainframe, another signal was already trying to get remote access. The other guy managed to throw me out, but he must have overloaded the system accidentally."

Epps tried the door once more. It remained unyielding. "Door's still locked," he sighed.

"Red Alert again," Maggie replied flatly. "He designed this place with back-up power cells so that integral systems remain working even without main base power."

"Locking us in is integral?" Glen asked incredulously.

The door rattled again. "It would seem so, wouldn't it?" Epps huffed.

Something clicked, and then a small beam of light from a penlight shone in the dark office. "Well, okay, we're in a dark, locked office during a lockdown with a possibly real intruder in the base. What are we going to do?" asked the holder of the light, whose voice revealed him as Will.

"Tell ghost stories?" Glen offered.

Through the office windows, Epps caught a glimpse of movement beyond. "Yo, Will, snap off the light for a second." Instantly the light was off and the tech sergeant could focus on what was going on down on the lower level of the human sector.

"What is it?" Maggie whispered.

"Something's out there," Epps replied. There was something moving through the inky blackness of the room, something small, quick, and moving erratically.

"_Stststupid Autototobots! Stupidistupidstupid! Getgetget-'em-all! Mmmmake-'em-pay!" _

"_Frenzy,"_ Maggie hissed, identifying the spastic 'Con's stuttering voice. Wherever Glen was, he was starting to hyperventilate; _bad _memories associated with the little mech.

"We've got to get out of here before he finds us," Will whispered. "None of us are armed or prepared to deal with a 'Con, even one his size."

"There's a ventilation duct above my desk," Maggie offered. Will swept the desk clean and hopped up, feeling the ceiling for the grate.

"Can you go any faster, man, the midget's getting closer?!" Epps asked in a hissing whisper.

A brief metal shriek, and then the grate was dislodged. "I'll take the lead, then Maggie and Glen. Epps, you take up the rear."

"No way!" Maggie seethed, her sharp stiletto clicking in a defiant stomp. "I am not crawling ahead of Glen! I'm wearing a _skirt_!"

Will sighed in frustration. "Fine, Glen first, and then you. Are you good with Epps behind you; he's married?"

"That's never stopped anyone before," the woman replied stormily. Nonetheless, she agreed to the arrangement.

"Our little 'Con buddy just hit the stairs, he's coming up!" Epps warned.

Will grasped the ledge of the ventilation duct and hauled himself up. "Come on, Glen! You're next!"

With a great effort, he managed to heave Glen into the dark duct. Maggie gasped suddenly as a pair of hands came around her waist and practically threw her into the shaft, followed shortly by an Epps-shaped shadow crawling in after.

Down below, the door began to rattle, Frenzy's chattering high and wild.

Will slid the grate covering to Epps, who replaced it just as the glass of the office windows were shattered by whizzing shuriken. Through the thick blanket of darkness, he skittered into the humans' office blindly. The little 'Con was running straight for something, and it wasn't the computers.

"_Cccccoffffffeeeeee"_ he hissed, snatching a cooled of mug coffee from Maggie's desk and downing it. _"Goodgoodgoodblend! Costa Rican! Moremoremore!"_

The hiding humans listened incredulously as the spidery bot proceeded to skitter over to the coffee maker in the corner and down the entire pot of three-hour-old cold coffee.

Another shadow appeared beyond the shattered glass of the office windows. "Come on, yer wastin' time on that human slag, ya junkie!" Rumble growled. "Ya already crashed the Autobot's mainframe; ya don' need ta crash yers!"

"_But,it-it-it's ssssooooo good!!"_

"Yeah, yeah, that's what they all say before someone ODs on somethin'," Rumble grumbled. "Let's just hack the files, get the others, and get outta here. Screamer's pissy enough as it is without making him hafta wait."

"_Rrrrright!!" _The sound of a thousand tap-dancing spiders crossed the room as the hyped-up Frenzy made his exit. The two invading Decepticons left in a wake of pattering metal feet, quickly exiting the human sector.

Epps let out a relieved sigh as soon as they were gone. "Three words," he said. "Too. Much. Caffeine."

"You think?" Will asked from his place at the head of the little group.

"I thought he was spastic _before_ he found Starbucks, but now he makes even crack addicts look bad," Glen sighed.

"He doesn't even have a stomach," Maggie whispered in disbelief, unable to wrap her mind around the fact that the little robotic freak drank the last of her precious imported Costa Rican coffee. "It doesn't make sense; where the heck would it go!?"

"You're working on a base built by giant alien robots that are in an intergalactic war with _other_ giant alien robots, and you're questioning what makes sense _now_?" Epps asked incredulously.

"Come on, it's best that we keep moving," Will urged. "We'll try and get to the command center from here, or at least get in contact with an Autobot and let them know there are intruders on base if they're not already aware… And Glen, you can let go of my hand now."

There was a slight pause. "…sorry."

They crawled on in near-silence, broken only by the metallic rippling of them crawling through the vents and Glens occasional whimpering.

"Man, how come this always happens?" Epps asked, breaking the silence.

"What always happens?" Will inquired as he slowly led the way at a snail's pace.

"Those little freaky dudes getting in," Epps answered. "Have you ever noticed that it doesn't matter how beefed up the security is around here, they always find a way to get in? I mean, that bird one, what-its-face, Laserfreak-,"

"Laserbeak," Maggie corrected.

"Whatever. That thing can get in and out of even the command center without anyone noticing. How the hell do you miss a giant metal bird perched in the rafters? Do the sensors not pick up on things like that? Or do the bots on security duty just sit there with their optics turned off?" The dark-skinned man made an irritated sound. "Even worse is that robo-cat, Cabbage-,"

"_Ravage,"_ Maggie hissed.

"_Whatever. _I can't even guess how all the freaking Autobots in this base can miss a freaking metal panther wandering about. We've had shit loads stolen from us by the cat and its buddies- info, ammo, med supplies, you name it and they've wandered in through the front door and taken it. They're nothing but a bunch of technical difficulties, you know? I mean, doesn't anybody else find it strange that the Autobots have been at war with the 'Cons for longer than our entire civilization's been around, and yet they _still_ haven't figured out how to keep the pests out?"

"Now that you mention it, it does seem pretty strange," Will intoned lightly.

"Nobody's perfect, guys," Maggie defended. "Maybe the symbiotes have got some sort of cloaking device on them that makes them hard to track."

"And the Autobots haven't even tried to copy the technology so that they could sneak into the 'Cons base, too?" Epps questioned pointedly.

"Oh, who knows?" she replied curtly. "They're aliens; we might've been sharing our planet with them for the past couple of years, but that doesn't mean we know all the tricks they got up their metal sleeves. Maybe the Autobots really do have tech but haven't used it yet."

"Do you know how illogical that sounds, having the tech but not using it?" Epps retorted. "If Prowl were here, you would've just blown every circuit in his motherboard." The female ahead of him made a discontent sound.

"Well then, if we get out of this alive," she hissed, "you can go ask an Autobot yourself _exactly_ why they let their security be lax enough to let every freaking bot in through the front door. Better yet, I hope we get captured by one of the 'Cons and you can ask _them_ how they do it."

"Cut it out, you two," Will warned. "You're scaring Glen."

"I'm not scared!" the rotund man huffed defiantly. Something grabbed his ankle and he screamed like a girl, jumping so badly that he left a dent in the metal above him. His unexpected shriek echoed loudly through the vents.

"Sorry, my bad," Maggie said once the ringing in her ears faded. "I can't see where I'm going."

"Okay, okay, hopefully nobody heard that," Will said, trying to calm his own racing heart.

"Yeah right, you'd have to be deaf not to," Epps snickered.

"Let's just keep moving," Will urged, continuing his slow crawl through the dark vent, the thin slice of his penlight balanced in his ear offering insufficient light. "Until we can find the command center, or at least a grate that leads to an Autobot, let's do something to keep our minds off of the situation, for all our sakes."

There was a slight pause, and then Epps voice floated through the dark, a little nervous to be voicing the one game he might regret playing. "…name game?"

"Sounds good."

"How do you play?" Maggie inquired.

"Pick a bot's name and come up with a reason why they named themselves that," Will said quickly.

"The dumber the shit you come up with, the better," Epps added, sighing.

"Um… how about Frenzy?" Maggie offered.

"Already called it earlier," Epps answered. "Too much caffeine."

"And before he fell in love with coffee?" she inquired smartly. "Why '_Frenzy_' huh?"

"Because Frenzy sounded like a better name than Spastic?" Glen offered hopefully. He received light laughter, heartening him.

"I guess you could think of a shark frenzy, maybe," Will said. He banked left when the vent they were crawling through abruptly split two ways. "It sounds a lot more threatening when you think of it that way, 'cause Frenzy by himself just isn't _that_ frightening. He's short and kind of buggy."

"You try being barricaded in Hoover Dam while that little freak is coming at you with whirling blades of death, then," Glen retorted. "Het gets a little frightening after that."

"Been there, done that," Epps replied. "Except first it was a freaking chopper that attacked us, then a giant scorpion, then we had a jet and a tank to deal with in Mission City, not to mention the same freaking chopper from before. Don't complain to us about some four-foot spaz-o-bot until you've faced down something five times your size."

"Does a pissed off Ratchet count after you've tried to translate his medical files into English and ended up deleting them all instead?" Maggie asked smugly.

"Hatchet beats 'Cons any day. You win," Will conceded.

"I get to choose the next name?" Maggie asked.

"Go for it."

"Alright, following the theme, Rumble's next."

They paused as the entire shaft they were crawling through shook dangerously, rumbling like distant, metallic thunder. It felt like a seismic tremor.

"Self-explanatory." Epps deadpanned.

"What the hell is goin' on out there?" Glen whimpered.

"Keep your mind off it, bro," Epps ordered lightly. "Just play the game. Ravage is next, I guess."

"Where to start…" Will murmured offhandedly, turning left once again as the vents split off.

"Is it male or female?" Glen asked. "Gotta ask before we start dissin'."

"Y'know, I've been wondered the same thing," Epps said. "I mean, it's easy enough ta guess with the humanoid ones- mechs sounds like guys, femmes sounds like girls; not that complicated. Give it more than two legs, though, and I don't know what the hell to call it."

"Has anyone every heard Ravage speak before?" Maggie asked. "Obviously the voice would be a major clue." There was a pause, and then her three male companions grunted in the negative.

"How about we just call Ravage male for convenience?" Will offered.

Suddenly, Maggie halted in the middle of the shaft, causing Epps to face-plant right into her behind.

"Hey, watch it woman. I haven't done anything wrong so I'm not in the mood for kissing your ass," he said as soon as he backed away from her posterior. He tried to give her a gentle shove in the back of her legs, but she was like a stubborn rock in the middle of the vent. "Hey, I'm sorry for running into your ass like that, okay?" She still didn't move. "Come on, what's wrong now?

Will paused, turning his head back so that his penlight bounced beams all about the shaft. "What's going on back there?"

Maggie's expression was stormy once again. "Why does Ravage instantly have to be a male?" she asked. "Why isn't it convenient to be female?"

"Whoa, hey, I'm not saying that at all!" Will countered quickly before the full fury of the feminist storm could be unleashed upon his poor, unprepared soul. "Look, it's convenient to be female too; I like females, I got nothing against them, my wife's one of them, but I was just figuring that since Frenzy and Rumble just happen to be 'male' that we might as well follow the trend."

The sole female of the group made a stubborn "humph" sound, conceding to finally continue crawling. "I think Ravage should be a female," she argued. "I mean, femininity is more closely related to felines than masculinity is. Take Catwoman from Batman for instance, or Black Cat from Spiderman, both strong female characters with obviously feline attributes-."

"Alright, alright, you made your case. Ravage is officially a 'she,'" Epps cut her off quickly. "Happy?"

"Yes." She replied curtly.

Will laughed unexpectedly from up ahead. "I guess that makes it a lot less awkward saying I was ravaged by Ravage a couple of years ago, huh?" he asked. His left side still had claw marks scored across his skin; it had been a hell of a job trying to explain it to Sarah that a robotic alien cat had mauled him and that he was NOT having an affair with some wild woman with a scratching fetish.

Glen perked up. "Do I sense a sexual connotation?"

Epps snickered. "Someone's into bestiality."

Maggie grumbled darkly. "Figures. The moment we make one of then a girl, the sex jokes come out."

They barely paused this time when a deep tremor ran through the ventilation shaft. They missed the dangerously close growl that vibrated through the metal.

Will laughed. "It's nothing on girls, Maggie; it's just all a part of the name ga-AGH!!"

A pair of claws suddenly thrust up through the bottom of the vent, showering sparks over the humans as the vent was torn out from under them. They caught a brief flash of something big, bad, and feline in the beam of Will's penlight before they were sent tumbling through the air in a tangle of arms and legs. Their fall was thankfully short, but the landing was painful. There was no time to recover, though, because the instant they landed, a massive paw was slammed down on their backs.

"Do not make any sudden moves. If you even dare try anything, you'll die," ordered the deepest, most _masculine_ voice any of them had ever heard.

Despite the situation, someone nudged Maggie. _"Female, huh?"_

"_Shut up,"_ she hissed dourly.

Ravage snarled dangerously, lifting his back paws to release Maggie and Glen. Laserbeak swept by and nabbed the pair, ignoring Glen's high-pitch squeal of terror. Will and Epps remained at Ravage's mercy, trapped under the beast's razor-sharp claws. Maggie and Glen were dropped unceremoniously in front of the massive computer on the desk they had fallen on, Laserbeak crowding them so that they were packed tightly to the cool metal surface.

Near by, Frenzy fussed over a panel in the wall that he couldn't quite reach without Rumble hoisting him up.

"Hurry up an' get the power back on!" Rumble grumped, stomping his foot so that the room trembled dangerously.

"_I'm hurryhurryhurrying, slag fofofor brains!" _The lights flickered, the hum suddenly humming to life as power was restored. _"Accessssing AutoAutoAutobot mainframe!" _

Will struggled under Ravage's grasp, but the pressure on his back increase, his ribs slowly buckling under the weight. "I will not hesitate to separate your head from your body if you continue, meat-bag," Ravage warned. Will stilled instantly.

"_We've got to do something!"_ Maggie whispered desperately to Glen. Laserbeak twittered agitatedly, hissing at them. Under the newly-restored lights, the bird-like symbiote watched them with sharp, narrowed optics.

"_I don't think asking if Polly wants a cracker is going to help,"_ Glen hissed back. _"We're going to end up as bird-food." _

"_Do you have your PDA on you?" _

"_Yeah, I think so…" _

"_Can you use it to jack into the mainframe and slow Frenzy down?" _

"…_I- I'll try."_ He needn't even turn around to find the proper jack to connect his PDA to the computer behind him; he knew the technology better then he knew the cheat codes to _World of Warcraft_. Going by touch alone, his fingers flew across the buttons of his hand-held, trying to hack without the use of his sight. _"I better get a damn medal for this-!" _he hissed.

Maggie jumped a little on the spot, jerking this way and that to keep Laserbeak's attention on her. _"Come on, Glen. You can do it," _she urged, all previous annoyance with him earlier all but forgotten by now.

"_Oh boy, you guys are about to experience a couple technical difficulties…" _The hacker snickered triumphantly. A surge of energy ran through the cables connecting his PDA to the computer, racing through the walls to where Frenzy was jacked in. In a bright flash, the pair of symbiotes were showered in a cascade of spewing sparks, throwing them across the room. A harsh series of Cybertronian curses followed shortly after.

"What do you two think you're doing?" Ravage growled, glaring at them. "Quit fooling around!"

"_Nnnnnot mymymy fffffault!!" _Frenzy chattered, scrambling out from under Rumble. _"Gotgotgot access codes anyanyanyways! Let'ssss getgetget out of hehehere!" _

"Good. We're falling back then." The robo-cat backed off of his captive human, gracefully leaping off the giant desk. Laserbeak glided gracefully after him.

"No, we can't let them get away!" Maggie cried. Will and Epps were already at the edge of the desk, ready to jump off after the intruding bots.

Glen grabbed the data analyst, holding her back. "Wait for it, Mags. They ain't getting away."

Ready to make their swift escape, the door opened to admit them into the hall, only to suddenly find themselves faceplate-to-faceplate with the barrel of Prowl's charged acid-pellet rifle.

"_I've had enough of this_," he growled darkly. With his free hand, he reached out and grabbed the four puny 'Cons. He marched off with them, leaving the humans to find their own way off the desk.

"How'd he know we were all here?" Will asked, hopping from desktop to chair, scrambling to the floor.

Glen gave a off an excited whoop. "Sent him a distress call while I was fighting off Frenzy!"

By the time they caught up with the cop bot, the lockdown had been lifted and he was now standing just outside the base's main entrance with Ironhide. The tactician had a hold of Laserbeak's head, squeezing it lightly. A tiny, red laser beam emanated from the tip of its beak. The other three symbiotes were nowhere to be seen.

"In that direction, Ironhide," Prowl said, indicating the direction Laserbeak's directional homing beacon was pointing. "And make sure they're far enough away that I don't have to deal with them for a while."

A dangerous smirk appeared across the weapons specialist's faceplate. "Hand that one over and you won't have to deal with them for a _long_ while."

To the humans' surprise, the black-armored mech grabbed hold of the bird-bot and stuffed it mercilessly into his left cannon, followed by muffled protests from the bots already cramped inside. He charged the massive weapon, took aim, and launched the four of them into the stratosphere.

Prowl watched the tiny streaks of light cross dark sky with grim satisfaction. Four headaches down, so many more to go… He turned abruptly to Glen, staring down at the rotund human with icy optics. "Mr Whitman, please come with me," he ordered.

Glen whimpered involuntarily. "W-why?" He didn't like the look the cop-bot was giving him.

"When you sent that distress call, I was also given access to your hand-held device's data storage system; it seems you possess an interesting collection of recently acquired musical files that I would like to discuss with you about."

"_Aw, damn." _

* * *

"I don't care if he shot you out of a cannon or boiled you in a vat of that caffeinated human junk you drown yourself in, I want those access codes NOW!" Starscream snarled, shaking Frenzy mercilessly.

"_Okayokayokay! Yyyyyou'll getgetget themmmm!" _The symbiote was dropped unceremoniously, left scrambling for an access with which to connect to and download the file he had stolen. Upon up-linking and pouring his stolen info into their base's computer, the little mech realized _exactly_ what the power surge the meat-puppet had caused had been.

"Well?! Bring it up already, you little glitch!" Starscream demanded.

Frenzy gave a helpless glance towards his fellow symbiotes. _"Oh shit…" _Then the opened music file began blasting out of the base's speakers.

"_We are…  
Experiencing technical difficulties!  
We are…  
Experiencing technical difficulties!  
We are…  
Experiencing technical difficulties!_

Please stand by…"


	5. Headstrong

Sorry this took so long!! I am sooo sorry! I just got so caught up in my sequel fic to _What Time We Have Left_, _As We Come Together_, that I sort of let this fic slide a little! Please don't be too mad!

_BYOB- _Bring Your Own Beer. Though, I suppose in the Autobots' case it might be Bring Your Own Energon…

_Chase Banes- _Readers of _The Name Game_ are actually getting something akin to a sneak-peek introduction of a character that will be used in _As We Come Together_. The character in _Come_, just like here, serves as Mikaela's aunt, because I figured young Miss Banes couldn't live on her own.

Major, super awesome over-the-moon thank you goes out to ever single one of my reviewers! I want to deeply and humbly thank blood shifter, **Dragon of Dispair, Cassiopeia1979, Yami-Yugi3, Blackwing.Rose, Dragon260, Jason M. Lee, Dreamchylde, cmdrtekk, Ludacris, Daebereth, Arahsi, Williamjamesw, guess, star's dreams, inuficcrzy, Fire From Above, amber Kat, LoveHopes, Soului, Fae Child19, Jazz's gurlz, Bluebird Soaring, Bunnylass, Jessi Tsuki**, and **Stesuna the Dragon**!

Disclaimer: as usual, I do not own Transformers, Bob Sinclair's _Sound of Freedom, _Weird Al Yankovic's _Dare to be Stupid, _Queen's _We Are the Champions, _Tom Cochran's _Life is a Highway, _Trapt's _Headstrong, _Three Days Grace's _Animal I have Become, _or _Riot, _or N.W.A's _Fuck da Police. _

**The Name Game**

With the breathless, flighty feeling of freedom now surging through each of them, flying down the old, empty highway at speeds well over the limit, a raucous chorus of cheering and blasting music reverberated throughout Bee's cab. As the humans threw their hands up, waving out the windows, faces alive with grins bright enough to light up the gloom of predawn, Bumblebee's speakers pounded with the fast, upbeat sounds of Bob Sinclair's _Sound of Freedom._

Miles' gave into the wild energy of victory strumming through his nerves, reaching from behind Sam to roll down the driver's side window and miraculously manoeuvre himself to hang his torso out it. _"Wahoo!! I'm on top of the world!!" _He wobbled dangerously.

"You're about to be under Bee's wheels!" Mikaela warned.

"Come on, Mikaela! We just outran _Prowl_! Live a little bit! This calls for a freaking celebration!" Miles howled into the wind.

"Celebrate _inside_ the car before you choke on a freaking bug!"

"I could use a couple bugs in my diet!" he yelled back. "They're 80 percent protein, you know!"

"Not if you get them in the eye!"

"You sound like my mother!"

Affronted, Mikaela pulled back, growling viciously.

Bolstered by Miles' excitement, Sam unbuckled. "Bee, quick! Take the wheel!" he called as he thrust himself out the window next to his friend. "Nobody can touch us now!" he cried, high-fiving his friend.

"Except maybe the bugs!" Miles shouted back, if only to bother the female in their midst.

Mikaela leaned over and tried to tug her boyfriend in by the leg of his pants. "Get in here before someone comes along and sees you two hanging out of Bee like a couple of freaks!"

Miles wriggled around so that his head peeked in next to Sam's pelvis. "This is a _deserted_ highway, 'Kaela! When was the last time you saw a car on this road that _didn't_ transform into a giant robot?"

The technical answer was '_never_', but the mechanic still was not in favour of watching the two irresponsible human males flail about outside the car. Snorting, prodigiously ignoring Miles' grin of victory, she turned to Bee's dash for help. "Make them get inside before they hurt themselves!"

Suddenly, the _extremely_ unhelpful Weird Al Yankovic song _Dare to be Stupid_ started cranking out the speakers, causing Sam and Miles to roar with laughter and continue on in their stupid ways. Miles stripped off his shirt and started to swing it over his head.

"_Who's the best, Sam? Who's the best?! Say it!" _the blond crowed.

"_We are, dude! We are_!"

They high-fived again, joining in with Bumblebee's radio as it switched to a wonderful rendition of _We are the Champions. _

"Bumblebee, I can't believe you're letting them get away with this! Are you, or are you not Sam's guardian?" Mikaela accused, poking the dash.

"I'm still Sam's guardian, Mikaela, and _no_, I am not being negligible of my duties as appointed guardian," Bumblebee said over the now blasting tunes of Tom Cochrane's _Life is a Highway_. "My sensors are locked on them; I will be fully aware the moment either one of them shows any signs of instability. In the meantime, let them celebrate this occasion, "pulling a fast" on Prowl is not a common occurrence."

Mikaela sighed; at that moment, there was some serious questioning of _mental_ stability going on.

"Don't worry, Mikaela," Bee urged. "I am not about to make any sudden jerks that will throw them from my cab."

Mikaela eyed Sam and Miles dubiously; at the rate they were going, Bee wouldn't need to jerk anywhere for them to throw themselves out. She opened her mouth to object once more, but her pants pocket started to ring with the death march- the ringtone designated for when her aunt decided to call. Sam caught a few notes of the ringtone and ducked his head into the cab, though remaining precariously perched on the window ledge.

'_Chase?'_ he mouthed, glancing to her quizzically.

Mikaela shrugged, stilling fumbling for her cell. Catching it on the tips of her fingers and flipping it open, there wasn't even time to get a 'hello' out before the roar of her aunt filled the cab.

"_Where the __**HELL**__ are you?" _

Jerking the phone away from her ear, Mikaela sighed. Sure, she loved Chase, but the woman was also the shortest, squishiest Decepticon she'd ever known. Daring bring the cell close to her ear again, Mikaela answered, "I'm coming home," before promptly pulling away again.

"_You better be coming home __**RIGHT NOW, **__missy! Do you even know what time it is?"_

A quick glance at Bee's dash and she answered, "Almost three-thirty... in the morning."

"_Exactly! I better see you pulling in at __**THREE-THIRTY ONE**__ or heads are going to roll!"_

"Fine, fine, I'm coming home-." Over the phone, Mikaela could _just_ make out the raucous sounds of a strange muffled series booming crashes in the background. "Chase, are you okay?"

The unmistakable sound of pissed-off-woman vibrated through the phone. _"Just get home!" _And as kindly as she had begun the conversation, Chase ended it.

"_Love you too,"_ Mikaela sighed, flipping the cell closed and tucking it away. "Bee, you heard her, right?"

"I believe the Autobots stationed on the moon heard her," he replied.

"Alright then, head home _quickly_."

Bumblebee's engine revved, seatbelts suddenly shooting out to wrap around his errant passengers' legs and drag them both in. Sam came easily enough, though Miles began choking wildly as his scrawny body was drawn through the window. He smacked his chest a couple times, and then swallowed a huge lump in his throat with much difficulty.

"You okay, man?" Sam asked.

"Bug," Miles grunted.

Mikaela laughed. "I warned you."

* * *

Seeing the shadowed outline of Hot Autobodies looming up ahead, Bumblebee put on one last burst of speed. Coasting over the old, cracked lot, he almost made it into the dusty driveway next to it were it not for the creature that marched out to stand directly in their path. In the dull light of early morning, it was easily made out to be a human- tall, female, wearing nothing but a large Hooters t-shirt and a pair of heavy-duty work boots.

Bee slid to a slow stop, halting a breath away from the woman's legs. Caught in the blare of the Autobot's headlights, Chase's severe expression was thrown into sharp relief, narrowed eyes steely and a knife-edged frown pulling her mouth down. She looked tired and harried, but a formidable woman nonetheless.

Mikaela slid out of Bee cautiously, trying not to make eye contact with her aunt- everybody knew you weren't supposed to make eye contact with an angry predator. Her feet hit the ground and a tremor ran beneath the soles of her shoes. An irritated spasm crossed the older woman's face.

"What took you so long?" Chase demanded, dangerous even in only her t-shirt and boots.

"Sorry," Mikaela offered, shrugging. "Bumblebee hasn't figured out how to hit light speed yet."

"Let me know when he does," her aunt replied wryly. "Until then, all of you: House. Now. Including you, Camaro boy."

Miles dared to peep out from the backseat. "But I gotta get _home_," he whined.

"Oh no, you're staying right here until you get rid of those _pests_ in my backyard," Chase ordered darkly. "I don't know how much more of it I can take; does this place _look_ like a refugee camp to anyone?"

A quick series of quakes trembled through the ground, the sounds of something akin of short explosions ringing in the air nearby. Bumblebee scanned the vicinity to find the source of the noise. Strangely enough, all he got was interference, but that alone was enough for him to formulate a guess as to _who_ could possibly be behind the localized earthquakes.

Growling, Chase spun on her heel and marched off towards the house, Mikaela, Sam, Miles, and Bumblebee following behind meekly. The closer they came to the gently shaking house, they began to pick up drifts of blasting music, first just a vague tune, but soon enough the words were floating in on the breeze.

"_Back off! I'll take you on!  
__Headstrong to take on anyone!  
__I know that you are wrong!  
__Headstrong! We're Headstrong!" _

Coming around the side of the house, flashes of golden yellow and bright red armor caught in the dawn light. Music throbbed in the fragile early morning air, the ground trembling under several tons of power and metal. A clash of metal on metal split the air, the ground swayed, dust kicked up, and when it settled Sunstreaker and Sideswipe could be seen locked in a vicious grappling competition. Blaster was sheltered on the back porch, lounging on a lawn chair that sagged under his weight.

"They've been at it since one," Chase hissed, glaring venomously to the intruders who had so kindly taken over her backyard. "Get rid of them before I call an alien tow truck." And with that, she marched sourly back into the haven of her house.

The sounds of Bumblebee's transformation back into bipedal mode were what caught Blaster's attention. The music blasting from the little mech didn't quiet, but he did offer a jaunty wave to the newcomers.

Unsurprised to see an alien in a lawn chair in her backyard, the humans took Blaster's wave as an invitation to come on to the porch, stealing some chairs for themselves. A dull glow from the cracked patio table let them know that the escaped bot had even been kind enough to supply his own energon while he and the twins took over the yard; truly, the Autobots had caught on well to human culture once they learned the BYOB part.

Bumblebee took a seat on the ground next to the patio, watching as the melee twins battled it out over the dusty expanse of the Banes' backyard. It looked like a particularly nasty fight, and their regard for the surrounding structures, being the nearby house and Hot Autobodies, was growing less and less as a free leg could come flinging out, narrowing missing the back porch, to sweep a set of feet out from under the other, and a long arm would swing a wide arc through the air, nearly taking the siding right off the garage, to cut across a faceplate. Both twins' faceplates were crumpled into dark snarls, lunging for one another as if they were facing down a Decepticon.

"_I know, I know all about-!  
__I know, I know all about-!  
__I know, I know all about your motives inside! And you decision to hide!  
__Back off! I'll take you on!  
__Headstrong to take on anyone-!" _

Suddenly Sunstreaker weaved between his brother's oncoming attack, sliding in close and cracking the other warrior right up the chin with a sharp uppercut. As Sideswipe went reeling from it, the golden-armored mech reached out and grabbed him by a ridge in his armor, dragging him back and securing him in a tight headlock. They struggled in that position for a while before Sideswipe lost his footing and went down hard, causing another shockwave to pass through the earth. With his faceplate firmly pressed into the dirt, he flailed his arms helplessly and began to whine.

"That's not fair! You cheated- I thought you said no cheap shots!"

"That wasn't a cheap shot! You were wide open!" Sunstreaker shot back, rubbing his brother's faceplate a little more into the dirt. "Now you have to say it! Say it, Sideswipe! Say who your creator is!"

The red twin grumbled something unintelligible through a mouthful of dirt.

"What was that? I didn't quite hear you- who's your creator, again?" Sunstreaker lifted his brother's head high enough for him to spew forth the admission.

"_You are." _He shook the other warrior off his back, moving into a more comfortable sitting position. "Best two out of three?"

"No way, I wiped the floor with you!" Sunstreaker gloated, also moving to sit down.

"_You guys were just sparring?" _Mikaela asked incredulously. Only moments before it had looked liked they'd been locked in a death match.

Blaster muted the music. "'Course they were, what else would they be doing?" he laughed.

Sam leaned over and patted his girlfriend on the leg. "Male bonding at its finest," he informed her. She gave him a disbelieving look and he shrugged in reply; the intricacies and delicacies of male bonding were so unfortunately lost on the female gender.

Miles leaned over consoling. "Don't worry," he said, nudging her on the arm. "You're not supposed to get any of. All you should know is that in universal guy-speak, a punch is as close to "I love you, man" as we'll ever get."

Mikaela sighed; she'd had too much testosterone (human or otherwise) for the night, it was all starting to give her a headache. Rubbing at her temple to clear her foggy brain, she fixed Blaster with a curious stare just as the little mech threw back the remaining portion of his energon. "What are you three doing here, anyways?"

"Hiding," he replied, grinning broadly.

Sam eyed the two very large, _very obvious_ robots sitting in the openness of the Banes' yard. "Yeah, you're doing a great job of it," he said.

"Hey, I'm masking our signatures!" the communications officer replied.

"Uh-huh, 'cause that worked out so well for you guys last time," Miles pointed out.

"It was a lucky guess on his part," Blaster sulked, clearly still miffed that Prowl at found them out. "I got mad skillz, it's just that Prowl's… _madder_."

The humans and Bumblebee exchanged nervous laughter. "You have _no_ idea," Sam sighed.

"You're going to have to get out of here soon, anyways," Mikaela said, jerking her head to the kitchen window behind her where her aunt could be seen shuffling around, unable to get back to sleep. "Chase wants you out of here."

"Yeah, this is _our _hiding spot from Prowl," Miles intoned.

Sideswipe quit his sulking to fix the new arrivals with a stubborn glare. "We were here first, so this is _our_ hiding place!" he shot back.

"Go hide in a parking garage! Or a car lot!" Miles protested. "You guys stick out like sore thumbs here!"

"This place was the closest!"

"Well _I_ live here, so that overrides everything else!" Mikaela pointed out.

At this, Sideswipe resorted to pouting, much to his brother's annoyance. "Aw, come on! Have a spark- er, heart! Let us stay! We'll be quiet as glitch-mice, I swear!"

Who could say no to those big baby blue optics designed specifically for the task of pouting? One quick glance into the kitchen informed the young woman that her aunt was thoroughly immersed in brewing a large pot of coffee. She sighed. "_Fine_. You can stay, but only if you keep quiet about it."

"I swear to Primus we'll be quite!" he chirped, grinning happily.

Bumblebee looked down at the human female with an impish grin painted on his face. "You fell right into his trap, you know," he teased.

"At this point, I don't care," she snorted.

Suddenly, two pairs of hands, one red the other yellow, reached out and grabbed the yellow scout, hauling him up and into the middle of the yard. Right on cue, Blaster turned up the music, blasting a new song to get the mood going-

"What happened to being as '_quiet as glitch-mice_'?!" Mikaela yelled. "That wasn't even a minute!"

Blaster laughed, Three Days Grace's _Animal I Have Become_ blasting so loud that the windows vibrated behind them. "Apparently you don't know how loud glitch-mice are!"

Sideswipe swung an arm around Bee, drawing him close. "Alright, Bee, you're on my side, 'kay? Sunny won't stand a chance against us-!"

"We'll make him a sunny-side up?" Bumblebee offered, readying himself for the match he had not volunteered for.

"Nah, it's going to be a sunny-side smack down."

Sunstreaker slid down into position. "One more "Sunny" joke out of either of you and I'll smack those grins off your faces permanently," he growled.

Mikaela shook her head in annoyance. She rose from her chair, grabbed the two other humans lounging nearby, and marched into the house through the backdoor.

"Hey, come on, I was gonna cheer for Bee!" Sam protested as he was swung into a chair at the kitchen table.

Chase glanced up from her mindless watching of the coffeepot. "You failed epically at get rid of them," she groused. "Streaker and company are tearing up my yard."

Miles laughed a little. _"Streaker…" _And then he perked up as inspiration hit. _"Sunstreaker…" _

"Miles, give it a rest," Mikaela sighed.

"How can I pass this opportunity up, though?" he whined, waving an arm to the window where both Bumblebee and Sideswipe had leapt on Sunstreaker. "Sun. Streaker. It just.. it's too perfect not to think about! Where the hell do you get a name like that?"

"Assholes Anonymous?" Chase offered, though she had no idea what the younger adults were talking about.

Sam decided to play along with the game, considering the name that was up for the kill. "Sunstreaker; Sun. Streaker. A giant flaming ball of gas and a little naked human running around in public; put them together and you get…?"

"A little naked sun running around in public?" Miles offered.

"…Can the Autobots even _be_ naked?" Sam wondered.

Miles pondered the question. "Well, being naked is the opposite of having clothes on, right? And the Autobots don't wear clothes… so, I guess that means that they're _all_ naked."

Mikaela looked as if someone has just dumped a bucket of ice over her head. "But I wax them for a living!" she exclaimed incredulously.

Her aunt looked up with a snort. "You and me both," she sighed. "We don't run a garage for cars; we run a salon for alien robots." With her coffee finally ready, she took the entire pot and left the room in search of some sort of refuge from the sounds of nearby sparring.

"You'd think for super advanced alien robots, they'd figure out a way to wax their own asses," Sam shrugged.

"Oh, they know _how_, it's just bots like Sunstreaker like the superiority complex that comes with _us_ doing it," she huffed. "He's definitely like the sun in that respect- full of hot air."

"And he's like a streaker, 'cause he's proud of it," Sam teased.

"Makes me glad I'm only a guinea pig for Perceptor- I'd hate to be everyone's waxing-bitch like you," Miles said, ducking as a an apple from the table's fruit basket whizzed by his head. Mikaela, like Ratchet, has scary good aim. "Okay, okay, change of name; Sideswipe's next-."

The windows rattled dangerously with a harsh blast of air as a stray foot came a little too close. It actually looked like Sunstreaker was still winning, even against two mechs. Blaster was still driving the music hard, now pounding out another Three Days Grace song, _Riot. _

Miles continued. "Sideswipe's a prankster, right? And he never, ever freaking gets caught-,"

"Until today," Mikaela reminded.

"Yeah, but that was voided when he went AWOL," Miles countered. "_Sideswipe _the word pretty much means taking someone in their blind spot- like a car getting another one along the side-."

"Or taking someone from behind," Sam offered.

Miles laughed and nodded. "Yeah, so we got the proud streaker and the one who takes you from behind. Nice pair, don't you think?"

"Yeah, a real family portrait," Mikaela replied, rolling her eyes.

"Well, they'd fit in nicely with Stars Cream, don't you think?" the blond asked while the other to groaned painfully as they revisited the name that started it all.

"_Stars Cream_? What the hell are you three talking about?" Chase snorted from the doorway, obviously coming back into the conversation at the _wrong_ moment. She at least had the decency to put a pair of pants on under her Hooters t-shirt.

"Cybertronians and their onscreen porn names," Miles replied, unabashed. "I'm thinking Blaster would be a pretty good one too, right guys?" Sam and Mikaela shook their heads, looking slightly ill.

Chase tipped her head, blinking once, twice, and then, "Wouldn't "Hot Rod" be a good porn name?"

"Ugh, Chase, don't!" Mikaela whined, flopping her head down on the table.

A strange silence suddenly seemed to settle in the kitchen of the Banes' home, and it slowly dawned on the humans that the sounds of clashing heavy metal (music and Cybertronian wise) had ended.

"That can't be good," Sam said cautiously. "Think someone's gotten hurt?"

"Let's go see," Miles offered, jumping up from his seat. The three adults made a beeline for the door, followed at a staggered pace by a vaguely interested Chase. Once on the porch, they noted that Blaster was now standing on the bowing patio table, Bumblebee, Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker frozen together in a strange tangle, none of them daring to move an inch.

"What is it?" Miles inquired, poking the microbot's legs.

"Shh, can't you hear it?" he hissed, shooing the human away. The humans collectively grew quiet, straining to hear what Cybertronian audio receptors could pick up so easily. First it was only distant rumbling, like thunder, then the bone chilling "whoop whoop" of an approaching police cruiser, followed by the roar of a monster-sized truck engine, and then twin blasts coming from two different, powerful diesel engines.

Rushing around the side of the house to peer out at the flat expanse of the highway, the horizon was broken by the appearance of an angry police piercing the distance, flanked by an ominous black Topkick, and followed closely by a blaring, flame-painted semi and a white and blue fully rigged car carrier.

Apparently, Prowl had found them, and he'd brought back up.

"Oh shit…" Sam breathed.

Sunstreaker hopped into action, struggled to untangle himself from his twin and the scout. "How the hell did he find us this time?!"

Chase leaned back against her house with a sigh of satisfaction. "I called myself an alien tow truck," she replied smugly.

Blaster gave a low whine as all his careful work masking everyone's signatures went out the window. A new song began to drift from his speakers.

Mikaela turned to the mech with a disbelieving look. "Blaster, this is no time to be playing _Fuck da Police." _


	6. The Song That Never Ends

* * *

I am so sorry for the horrendously long wait! Life and other fic ideas got in the way! I am so sorry about this! I hope that you enjoy the last chapter of the name game! Please, leave a review and let me know what you think!

_Ultra Magnus's Ability to Detach from His Carrier- _I know that in G1 the carrier was a part of his body when he transformed _(and didn't just disappear into netherworld like somebody else's trailer…)_, but, for the sake of this story, I am going to have his car carrier as a detachable accessory. It is movieverse after all; if they could give Prime flames, then I can separate Magnus from his carrier. Besides, if you were to calculate the combined mass his truck alt mode _and_ the carrier, Magnus's bipedal mode would be a hulking monster.

Humungous thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this silly little story of mine! You have been tremendously wonderful! There are no words to describe how great you are! A galaxy-sized thank you goes out to **blood shifter, Bunnylass, Jason M. Lee, Bluebird Soaring, Violetlight, Yami-Yugi3, AutobotStarlight, Dragon260, cmdrtekk, Daebereth, star's dreams, Fire From Above, Jessi Tsuki, amber Kat, Lucadris, Pheonix13, Twospotz, Kayla The Shapeshifter, theshadowcat, jazzbot8907, Soului, inuficcrzy, chigirigi, Anonymous a, Blazonix, LoveHopes, BarkingPup, Storm Blue Lightning Saix**, and **ArmoredSoul**!

Special Thanks goes to both **Lady Tecuma** and **Violetlight** for reading this over and saying it was funny. I've been struggling to get my funnies out for a while and it just doesn't seem to be happening for me. They certainly gave me the boost I needed to finish this. Thank you two so much! Plus, I want to thank **Violetlight** and her Latin classes for the lowdown on Optimus' and Magnus' names- and the suggestion of _Iron Man_ as a song. You're awesome **Violet**!

Disclaimer: I do not own Transformers, Great Big Sea's _It's the End Of The World As We Know It_, George Thorogood _Bad to the Bone, _Black Sabbath's _Iron Man, _or _The Song That Never Ends._

**The Name Game**

"_It's the end of the world as we know it!  
__It's the end of the world as we know it!  
__It's the end of the world as we know it!  
__And I feel fine!" _

Mikaela rubbed her temples soothingly, taking several deep breaths before sticking her head out the window. "Blaster, you're really not helping things here!"

"I thought the song was appropriate!" Blaster called back, his alt mode glinting merrily in the dawn light from where it was strapped down to the lower level of Ultra Magnus's car carrier.

"_Hardly."_ Mikaela growled, grimacing as the mech turned the cheerful, apocalyptic tune enough so that it no longer warbled in the wind, ringing in loud and clear through the metal scaffolding of the moving carrier.

"It could be worse," Sam shrugged. "He could be playing _Doomsday Clock_ by Smashing Pumpkins, or _End of the World_ by Armour for Sleep, or _The End_ by The Doors, or-,"

Mikaela's cell phone cut him off abruptly with a shrill ring and she scrambled to answer it, laughing lightly as Miles quietly muttered in relief, _"saved by the bell." _Flipping the little cell open, Prowl's voice suddenly came streaming in for the entire car to hear loud and clear.

"_I trust you are still secure back there?" _he inquired.

"Yeah, just fine, Prowl," Mikaela answered before anyone could complain.

"Glad to hear you consider your prisoners' comfort when you're transporting them to their doom." Miles called from the back seat, his voice lofty and melodramatic.

A sigh same over the speakers. _"You are not my prisoners and I am not transporting you to your "doom." You three are accomplices to several infractions that have taken place on base and as such, you will be penalized appropriately." _

Multi-toned electronic gabber came over the cell phone before Ultra Magnus's deep, rumbling voice came over it. _"We will see to it that the punishment is within the limits of human durability," _he said ominously. _"I cannot say the same for Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Blaster, or Bumblebee." _

The car carrier jerked around a bit as the eavesdropping twins tried to shake their energon restrains and roll for it again. In return, Ultra Magnus swerved, swinging his entire load sharply. While the captive Autobots were securely strapped down to the carrier with the thickest energon restraints Prowl could find, only receiving minimal jolts, the humans were not so lucky. Miles saw stars as his head smacked the window, and Sam saw nothing but Miles' shoulder as he face-planted into it; Mikaela got the gearshift in her side while Chase ate the steering wheel hard.

Already pissy from being conned into coming in with her niece and friends for their sake (they were too terrified to climb in the back seat of Prowl's alt mode for fear of what he would do to them), a hot streak of exhaustion-induced road rage shot through Chase. She thrust her head out her '91 Honda Civic's window and yelled, _"Would you watch your freaking driving! I did not put up with you robots for seven years to die now!"_

Mikaela scrambled for her fallen cell phone, which had wedged itself underneath her seat when the car jerked. Optimus's calm voice was speaking now.

"_My apologies, Chase,"_ he said. _"I am aware that this might be of an inconvenience to you to be escorting Mikaela, Sam, and Miles back to base-."_

"Damn straight it is," she groused.

"_-And, although it is a nuisance, we greatly appreciate the time and patience you are giving us."_

"Time and patience mean bullshit if I'm dead." Chase replied flatly. "Either talk Magnus into taking the alien equivalent of a breathalyser, or else keep him in the right lane."

"_If that is what will make you more at ease, Chase, Magnus will be more careful with his driving,"_ Optimus offered, ever the peace keeper.

"It'll make me as "_at ease_" as I possibly can be when I'm in a car strapped down to the top of a moving car carrier driven by a giant alien robot who can't seem to keep it in a straight line," Chase replied, not bothering to curtail her sarcasm. It was ass crack O'clock in the morning; there was no way in hell she was going to pretend to be nice.

"_I'll have you know, I am aware of all of Earth's driving laws and regulations and I am following them within their specified parameters," _Ultra Magnus retorted curtly.

"_Sure_, because us being up here is the most _legal _thing in the world," the woman replied, barking a harsh laugh. "I do this kind of thing all the time with my human buddies too."

Sam reached out to pluck the phone from his girlfriend's hands. "I don't see why you couldn't have just us ride with Bee," he said. "I mean, it would have saved you the hassle of loading Chase." He ignored the middle finger saluted in his direction from the driver's seat.

"_I am not chancing another escape." _Prowl replied curtly. _"As I seem to recall, it was not even a few short hours ago that you three decided to go AWOL with Bumblebee; what would stop you from attempting another run if I let you ride with him?"_

"_Ironhide's cannons come to mind..."_ Miles uttered under his breath, hoping neither Prowl no Ironhide heard him. No doubt the Topkick was flanking the group for that exact purpose; in the event someone tried to run, he'd get target practice.

"Fine, fine, point taken- we can't be trusted with Bumblebee," Sam conceded reluctantly. "But don't you think it's an unreasonable precaution to have us strapped down to the top of the carrier? Wouldn't it have been just as easy to have Chase _drive_ us?"

"_Perhaps, but I reiterate the point of the possibility of escape." _

"Do you honestly think this older-than-shit car could outrun you all?" Mikaela asked with a roll of her eyes.

"_That's not for me to say. Even if the probability is low, there is no point in taking the risk. You are safely restrained on the carrier and Ultra Magnus is being more careful with your transport; if you cause no further trouble by trying to escape, then there should be no other issues." _Prowl explained calmly.

"Oh yeah? What if I have to go pee?" Miles challenged for the hell of it.

It took Prowl a few moments to reply; human bodily functions were always a touchy (if not a little creepy) subject amongst some Cybertronians. _"You will have to… "hold it" until we get to base. You may use the human facilities there." _

"What if I can't hold it?" Miles asked. "What if I gotta go so bad I can taste it?"

"_That is physiologically impossible for your species,"_ Prowl informed him firmly.

"Oh yeah? Well tell that to my poor bladder," Miles retorted, his grin obvious in his voice. "No, wait, tell that to my poor bladder _and _my poor taste buds- they're the ones being held hostage by all the backed piss that can't fit in my bladder anymore."

"Miles, that's disgusting," Mikaela muttered, though she was stifling her own laughter.

"_Can't we just pull over for him?" _Bumblebee intoned. He'd driven Sam around enough over the years to know the direness of a human who had to relieve themselves.

"_We are not that far from base. I am sure that he can control his bodily functions until then." _

Miles sighed dramatically. It looked like he was going to lose his hypothetical game of human-has-to-go… "Alright, fine, leave me up here to suffer. I might as well just open the door and-."

"_If you even __**dare**__ leak up there, you little carbon-monkey, and it gets on me, I'll smear you into the ground!"_ Sunstreaker roared. The entire carrier rocked with his fury. Magnus swerved again to keep the Lamborghini in check, throwing the humans again despite his prior promise of safer driving.

Even as his head bounced off the window, Miles couldn't help but grin. He'd gotten a rise out them, which was what he'd been aiming for. Baiting bots was some of the best kind of fun to be had, almost as fun as picking on their names.

Chase grunted as her nose cracked against the wheel. Her fingers came up to feel the damage and came away wet and red. Stemming the flow by pinching her nose, Chase's gaze was dark and promised pain as she glared towards her niece.

"You owe me _so much_ for coming with you," she hissed. "I mean blood service out of all three of you for a couple of _months_. Otherwise, Autobot tires aren't the only thing I'm slashing tonight."

Overhearing the impending threat, Sideswipe whined through the open phone line. _"We didn't do anything _that _bad this time-!" _

"_You're concept of 'that bad' is severely skewed,"_ Prowl pointed out flatly.

But Sideswipe would not be swayed; he'd been watching too many Law & Order/cop shows to back down now. "_Don't we get _any_ say in this, though? A hearing, or defence, or something?" _

Ironhide's deep, gravelly voice rumbled through the phone. _"Not unless you want to bargain with the business end of my cannons." _

"…_nevermind. I'm good back here." _The Lamborghini squeaked. He'd take human leakages and slashed tires over plasma cannons any day; he'd wait to make his appeal.

Mikaela rolled her eyes and snapped her cell shut, stashing it back in her pocket. No point in listening to alien robots quibble back and forth.

"Prowl must be super pissed if he's willingly breaking a law by leaving us up here," she commented offhandedly.

"Maybe he's a dirty cop now," Miles offered, nodding to Prowl's panda-paint glinting in the dawn light, his back end blackened with soot. "Get it? _Dirty_ cop?"

"Har har," Mikaela replied flatly, reaching for the radio. She switched it on and fiddled with it until she found a song that was loud enough to drown out Blaster's ongoing music selection.

"_-I'm here to tell ya honey,  
__That I'm bad to the bone-  
__Bad to the Bone  
__B-B-B-B-Bad B-B-B-B-Bad B-B-B-B-Bad  
__**Bad to the Bone-." **_

A wicked solo ensued, filling the car with the sweet tunes of George Thorogood.

"I don't know why, but this song makes me think of Ironhide," Sam said offhandedly.

"Really?" Mikaela asked, eyebrow quirked curiously.

"Yeah- it just has this kind of old, badass feeling to it- kind of like Ironhide, you know?"

She laughed a bit. "I guess. I never really thought about it before."

"Now's as good a time as any to think about it as any," Miles pointed out, nodding out the window to the road ten feet below. "It's not like we're getting out of here any time soon."

"I got a better song for old 'Hide," Chase offered, her nose now stuffed with tissue she'd dug out from somewhere. She leaned across to the glove compartment, retrieving a CD case and popping in a disk.

"What song?" Sam asked enquired curiously.

"Just wait for it," Chase ordered, waving him off with a flick of her hand.

And then came the unmistakable announcement-

"_I Am Iron Man" _

_-_followed by one of the most famous riffs by Black Sabbath.

"_Nice," _Sam laughed. Miles gave a little air guitar show in the back, miming along with song.

"The song's kind of creepy, actually- like, how much it pertains to our lives," Mikaela said. "It's a about a guy made of metal who travels through time to benefit mankind."

"Holy shit," Miles breathed, dropping his air guitar act.

"Yeah, but then, because of his metal form, the people reject him, even though he's done all this stuff to help them. For revenge, he tries to kill everyone."

"...So, who wants to give Ironhide a hug right now and tell him that we appreciate everything that he does?" Sam asked, a nervous smile wavering on his face.

Chase rolled her eyes, taking her CD back and stashing it away. "It's just a song. Get over it."

Miles cleared his throat a little, diverting attention to him. "Well, when you think about it, Ironhide's name really suits him, doesn't it?" he asked carefully, segueing into the name game cautiously. "I mean, Ironhide is as tough as they come, right? He's older than dirt, survived this war probably better than _anyone_, and no Decepticon in their right mind would dare take him on in single combat _or_ in a long range firefight. _And_ he can take a hit like the best of them; I've seen him spar with other bots- he's got thicker armor than most other Autobots combined. It's like he's got an _iron hide_."

Sam tipped his head consideringly. "I can see where you're coming from, but then you could also think of the iron in Ironhide's name as meaning "gun," since a synonym for gun is iron, like someone's packing iron…"

"Yeah, makes sense," Miles agreed, nodding along. _""Gun-hide."'_

"Of course it makes sense when the mech we're talking about loves his cannons more than Sunstreaker loves his reflection," Mikaela said, her eyes twinkling. "Figures he'd find a way to _stick to his guns."_

"Bad pun," Miles laughed.

"Look who's talking," Mikaela shot back in good humour.

"I'm the king of puns!" Miles shouted, looking terribly mock-affronted.

"The king of _bad_ puns," Mikaela countered.

"I resent that!"

"Oh please, this coming from the guy who gave us "Stars Cream"? Don't even try to defend yourself, you've already lost."

Sam laid a hand on Miles' shoulder. "She's right, man" he said lightly. "Never argue with a woman." He leaned in close so the two females in the front wouldn't hear and shared the one of the few bits of wisdom he had. "Even when you _know_ you're right, if you argue with them long enough, you will suddenly find that you are explicably wrong in some obscure and terrible way, and until you are ready to admit that you were wrong for something you know you were right about, your ass will be sleeping on the couch."

As fate would have it, Miles was far less reverent of the terrifying power of women than Sam was. "I haven't even used my best material for this one, yet!" he challenged.

"Dear God, do I even want to hear it?" Mikaela groaned. Chase sighed, reaching beneath her seat and pulling out a compact flask. With a glance to Miles gearing up for whatever spiel he was about to give, she downed the entire thing.

"Okay, okay, here goes." Miles cleared his throat and prepared for his delivery. "Iron is a particularly hard metal, right? And the last part of his name is _hide_, which is like skin, like the ass of a cow or something. So, string them together and what you get? _Ironhide_ equals _hard ass_."

The Civic vibrated with the raucous laughter that ensued.

"Hard ass, indeed. Not bad, Miles," Mikaela chuckled, the first to come down from her laughter-high. "How about I give you a challenge, then? Try Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus on for size."

"Aw, damn," he pouted. "How the hell am I supposed to figure those one out?"

Fiddling with her flask between her fingers, Chase perked up a little. "They're Latin, aren't they?" she asked. ""Optimus" means something like "the best" and "Prime" is- oh damn, what is it…" she puzzled briefly with the answer on the tip of her tongue. Why did Latin class have to be all those eons ago? "I'm not sure, but I think "Prime" is supposed to be "first" of something."

"You sure?" Sam questioned.

Chase shrugged. "It's been twenty-plus years since I've been to school, so sue me if I'm not fluent in Latin anymore."

"But that means Optimus' name would mean Best First." Sam said disbelievingly. "Come on, _Best. First." _

"I think it fits," Mikaela intoned. "Optimus is the leader of the Autobots, isn't he? So, being the Best First would make sense- you wouldn't want the second worst as leader, now would you?"

"Starscream seems to think it's okay," Miles countered.

"Starscream seems to think a lot of things are okay," Mikaela said.

Sam was still stuck on the translation of Optimus' name. "Are you serious? "_Best First_?" That's what his name means?"

Chase sighed, shrugging. "I guess."

"In that case, I think someone is just a _tiny_ bit full of himself," Sam sighed. "How about Magnus? What's his name mean?"

The older woman thought over the name of a few moments. "I'm not sure; I think it's something like "_Beyond Greatness_"…"

Sam laughed. "It's amazing this planet doesn't implode from the weight of some robots' egos."

"Maybe we should rename the Autobots the Egobots," Miles joked. "You'd think their egos' were a prerequisite for leadership."

"How so?" Mikaela enquired.

"Just think about it; you got **Megatron- ."**

"Megatron?"

"Yeah, Megatron, 'cause you can put "Mega" at the beginning of any word and make it sound mega-badass. You'd think you'd have to have a little bit of an ego to name yourself that. And then there's his lovely cream of the crop second-in-command, Starscream-."

"I just got a really bad image when you said _cream on the crop_," Sam grimaced.

Miles grinned. "Do I even have to explain Starscream's ego, or have we all had enough of it to drown ourselves in?"

"I think we've had enough of Starscream's ego to drown several continents," Sam pointed out.

"Alrighty then, moving on to the Autobot's side: We have Optimus Prime; Best First; their Supreme Commander; Número Uno; Head Honcho; The Boss; The Chief; The End All To Be All-."

"Miles, we get the point," Mikaela said quickly.

"Hold on, I got a couple more-."

"No really, _we get the point_." She said firmly.

"Fine, so yeah, Optimus I think has this hidden super ego, you know. Like passive aggressive style- he acts all calm and noble on the outside, but on the inside, he's a raging egomaniac and his name was just accidental slip of the- uh, Cybertronian equivalent of a tongue."

"Any ideas as to why his name's in Latin instead of English, genius?" Sam teased.

"Because his name was too great to be conveyed by the English language." Miles replied matter-of-factly. "_Everything_ sounds cooler in Latin."

"Right…" San rolled his eyes. "Moving on to Magnus."

Miles cleared his throat, missing how the entire car shuddered, failing to see that they had now come to a complete stop. He was in the game now; there was no stopping him, not even the fact that they had arrived at the base. "And then we come to his "Great Beyond" eminence, Ultra Magnus-."

"Yes?"

Miles gave off a high-pitched squeal, whipping around to face the large, metallic faceplate of said "Great Beyond" eminence peering in through the Civic's window. Momentarily flabbergasted, the human could do nothing but stare wide-eyed and spasm in his seat. So involved in the game were they, they hadn't noticed the carrier come to a halt and Ultra Magnus unhitching himself.

Ultra Magnus tipped his head curiously, staring back at the obviously not-well Miles. "Is everything alright? Did I jar you when I came to a stop?"

"No, we're fine, just a little startled," Mikaela explained.

The Base Commander backed off a little, an apologetic look coming across his features. "My apologies."

Prowl was crouched below them, unlatching Blaster's restraints. _"_Do not try to run," the tactician warned.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Blaster replied, easing himself up to the second level of the carrier as the twins were unhitched. The microbot tugged open the Civic's diver side door. "Put in a good word for us, will ya?" he said with a slight smile as he helped Chase from the car.

"No way. You dug your graves, now you're going to lie in them," she replied, giving the mech a smile that was more poisonous than friendly. "I just came along to make sure my niece and company got here in one piece." She turned to Prowl, who was now directing Sideswipe down the ramp. "They're all yours, Prowler. I'll leave the Civic here so they can drive themselves home. Just call me a cab and I'm outta here."

The tactician kept his gaze focused on the twins, not willing to give them another opening for escape. "Of course. I am sure that Hound is off duty by now, he'll escort you home."

"Lovely." She turned to the three guilty humans now easing themselves out of the car. "Good luck you three, _you're going to need it."_ Without further ado, she scrambled down the scaffolding, off in search of Hound to demand a ride home.

In an act of supreme rarity, Prowl cracked a ghost of a smile, staring down at the assembled party of guilty persons as soon as all of them were gathered together off the carrier- Bumblebee, Blaster, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Sam, Mikaela, and Miles. Under his, as well as Optimus', Ultra Magnus', and Ironhide's scrutiny, they squirmed uncomfortably. Miles was looking a little faint, leaning against Mikaela's shoulder for support.

There was a small bit of satisfaction in seeing the guilty squirm. The tactician had been through the night of pit with the rigging of his office, the hunt for the perpetrators, the invasion of the Decepticons, the _second_ hunt for the AWOL perpetrators; he was now drawn, drained of patience, and looking for a punishment that was great enough to convey how truly _fragged off_ he was.

Optimus laid a firm hand on Prowl's shoulder. "Do penalize them accordingly," he instructed. "But try to remember that I will need them functional in the future, not traumatized beyond repair."

"I will keep that in mind, Prime."

Ironhide allowed a gruff rumble to emanate from his vents. "If they cause anymore trouble, you know where to find me. I'll be glad to take care of them for you."

"I think a punishment fitting of their infractions will be enough to deter them from future mischief."

Ultra Magnus glanced towards the decidedly petulant-looking twins. "We will see how long that lasts."

"We're going to die, aren't we?" Miles squeaked.

Prowl deigned to give him an ominous look. "Actually, I have something else in mind..."

* * *

"…you know, this ain't too bad," Miles said offhandedly, twiddling his thumbs in the large cell he was sharing with Sam and Mikaela. "I mean, sure, we're stuck in here for the day, but it could be worse, right? Prowl could have sent us to the med bay with the others for a week's worth of duty with Ratchet."

Sam shrugged, his fingers lightly playing over the dimly glowing force field that kept them in the cell- it was adjusted to the lowest setting possible so that it didn't fry any humans if they touched it. "I guess it could be worse…"

Suddenly, a soft pneumatic hiss sighed through the large isle of the brig. A couple of light footsteps echoed through the room before a friendly light-grey faceplate came around the corner.

"Here to keep us company?" Mikaela asked as she watched Bluestreak ease himself to the floor in front of their cell. The mech grinned a little and shook his head.

"No, not this time. Prowl asked me to come down here to be your warden. I hope you three are comfortable, we had to turn down the force fields to their lowest setting so that you didn't scramble any of your organic circuits- no, wait, actually, we didn't so much as "turn it down" as we had Wheeljack come in and override the power output controls and write in a new sequence for a low-power field." He reached out and touched the field, which brightened fractionally but did nothing more. "I can barely feel it, which is funny since it's the thing that holding you in and its barely there. Or, well, I guess it's not so funny, 'cause if you touched it you'd probably end up with a huge shock. It's so strange that you're species is so resilient in some cases, and yet so fragile in others."

Forcing a strained smile across his face, Sam leaned towards Miles. "I think it just got worse."

Oblivious to the exchange, Bluestreak suddenly perked up as he remembered something. "Oh, hey, do you want to hear this new Earth song that Prowl just taught me? I know, it seems really strange that Prowl of all mech would teach me a song, but he said that you three would really enjoy it if I sang it to you. Normally he's not so big on letting people in the brig enjoy themselves, but I guess you're lucky. He seemed like he was in a pretty good mood after he came out the med bay and caught me in the hall- although Ratchet didn't sound too happy with whoever he had trapped in there with him. I feel sorry for the poor mechs Ratchet's holding hostage-."

The three humans exchanged alarmed glanced, each praying a silent prayer that their Autobot friends made it out of their sentence alive.

"-But, anyways, I think you'll really enjoy this song. It's actually kind of funny." He paused to get the tune right in his head, and then opened his mouth to begin,

"_This is the song that never ends…" _

Miles shot Sam a terrified look. "No, dude, _now_ it's worse."

* * *

By the time the sun was heavy on the horizon and the humans were finally released from their punishment, they were in a near catatonic state. Ten hours straight with Bluestreak and _that song_ was **far** worse than anything Ratchet could have possibly thrown that the others. They twitched with the very mentioning of music, not even daring to touch the radio as they drove off in Chase's Civic. Oh pure, sweet silence; something the relished in the entire drive home.

It was only shortly after their departure that Prowl's office door hissed open quietly, admitting Bluestreak. The tactician spared the sniper a brief nod before continuing to work on the mountain of data pad that had built up on his desk. Bluestreak just smiled and sat down in the chair across from the cop-bot. A day spent with the three young humans had given the sniper something to think about.

"Have you ever thought about it?"

Prowl looked up, optic ridge quirked. "About what?"

"Their names."

"Whose names?"

"The humans' names…"


End file.
